What are the Endoscopic and Pathological Characteristics of Colorectal Polyps?

Colon polyps need to be excised upon detection during colonoscopy due to the risk of malignancy irrespective of their size. In our study, we retrospectively evaluated the clinicopathological characteristics of polyps detected during colonoscopy.

We assessed 379 patients with polyps detected during colonoscopy between January 2010 and May 2012. The demographics, complaints, colonoscopy findings (shape, place and size of the polyp) and histopathological findings were recorded. We carried out statistical analysis using PASW 18.0 for Windows.

There were 227 males (59.9%) and 152 females (40.1%) in the trial. The mean age was 53.8 years (32-90). The most common complaint was rectal bleeding (36.1%), followed by abdominal pain (35.4%). Polyps were detected most commonly in the rectosigmoid region (43.8%), followed by the descending colon (17.4%). Some 239 patients had a single polyp (63.1%) while 140 were found to have multiple polyps (36.9%). While tubular adenoma was the most common pathological type, occurring in 181 patients (47.8%), tubulovillous adenoma (14.2%) and hyperplastic polyp (12.7%) followed, occurring in 54 and 48 patients respectively. While 313 patients (82.6%) did not feature dysplasia, 37 patients (9.7%) exhibited low- grade dysplasia, 28 (7.7%) had high-grade dysplasia and 4 had cancer (1.1%). The rates of villous components and dysplasia were detected to be high among pedunculated polyps and polyps larger than 1 cm (p<0.001).

Due to the fact that large-diameter polyps with malignant potential are commonly located in the left colon and have a high prevalence among the middle-aged individuals, it would be appropriate to screen this population at regular intervals via rectosigmoidoscopy.