Abstract
From October 1976 to September 1981, the authors performed 3, 000 proctosigmoidoscopic examination to 2, 794 outpatients. They were divided into 2 categories as follows. 1) Ones who had symptoms suggestive of the lower intestinal tract disorders. 2) Ones who had digestive disorders other than the intestinal tracts or ones to whom the proctosigmoidoscopy were undertaken as a routine preoperative examination. Pathological findings were found in 466 cases of the total patients (16.7 %) by proctosigmoidoscopy, including 105 cases of carcinoma (3.8%), 227 cases of benign polypoid lesions (8.1%) and 134 cases of inflammatory disorders (4.8%). Among 105 colorectal carcinoma, 26 cases were early carcinoma and 79 were advanced carcinoma and among 227 benign polypoid lesions, adenomatous polyps were 118 cases. Average age of the patients with adenomatous polyp and carcinoma were 58.2 and 63.6 years respectively. Both malignant and benign polypoid lesions were apt to be found in the right side colon among older people. Lesions found by proctosigmoidoscopy covered 33.1% of adenoma, 76.5% of early carcinoma and 58.5% of advanced carcinoma in the lesions of the total colon. The incidence of adenoma and carcinoma in the total outpatients (51, 209) in the periods were 0.23% and 0.21% respectively. In conclusion, routine examination of the proctosigmoidoscopy to the outpatients is very effective as the screening method of colorectal carcinoma.
