Clinico-pathological study of colonoscopic biopsies in patients with chronic diarrhea

Background: Colonoscopic biopsy is important in the diagnosis and treatment of suspected colonic diseases as it is a diagnostic procedure of choice for patients with chronic diarrhea lasting for several weeks to months. Main objective of the study were to establish colonoscopic biopsy as an effective tool in the diagnosis of chronic diarrhea and to evaluate normal and abnormal mucosal colonoscopic biopsy in the contribution of differential diagnosis in chronic diarrhea patients. Methods: The present study was conducted over a period of 2 years from November 2013 to October 2015 in the Department of Pathology, Andhra medical college, Visakhapatnam. This study included 104 colonoscopic biopsies with clinical history of chronic diarrhea. Results: Out of 104 biopsies evaluated, specific diagnoses were 41 (39.42%) and nonspecific diagnoses were 63 (60.57%). This study showed male preponderance (67% of cases) with average age of 40.5 years (6-84years), remaining 33% female cases had average age 45 years (16-65 years). Out of 41 specific histological diagnoses made, majority of them were malignancies   seen in the age group of 51-60 years and inflammatory bowel disease seen in the age group of 30-40 years. Conclusions: The importance of colonoscopic biopsies lies especially in some chronic diarrhea patients with normal colonoscopy as in present study which contributed the more specific diagnosis like lymphocytic colitis, eosinophilic colitis, ulcerative colitis and pseudo membranous colitis and nonspecific cases to be followed up regularly.