• Erkan Somuncu, Ümmihan Topal, Süleyman Sönmez, Yasin Kara, Emre Bozdağ, Adem Özcan, Ceren Başaran, Cenk Özkan, Yunus Emre Tatlıdil, and Mustafa Uygar Kalaycı.
• Department of General Surgery, University of Health Sciences, Kanuni Sultan Suleyman Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.
• Arch Iran Med. 2021 Apr 1; 24 (4): 296-300.

BackgroundThe clinical significance of gastrointestinal wall thickening (GWT) on abdominal computed tomography (CT) is not certain, yet. Despite the need for clinical guidelines describing the importance and evaluation of GWT on a CT scan, there have been few studies evaluating these incidental imaging abnormalities. The aim of this study is to endoscopically evaluate certain etiologies that cause incidental GWT found on CT.MethodsThis retrospective cohort study was carried out with patients who had incidentally detected GWT on a CT scan at the Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Training and Research Hospital between February 2016 and December 2018.ResultsA total of 129 patients (62 males and 67 females; mean age 57.5 years, range: 26-87 years) were included in the study. Abnormalities observed during endoscopy at the exact site of the GWT noted on a CT image were found in 114 patients (99%): upper endoscopy revealed malignancy in 33 (29%), gastritis in 63 (52%), hiatal hernia in 19 (16%), a gastric ulcer in 7 (6%), and alkaline gastritis in 3 (2%). Colonoscopy revealed malignancy in 4 (33%), benign polyps in 5 (35%), colonic ulcer in 2 (16%), and 2 patients (16%) had normal findings. Malignancy was detected more frequently in the cardioesophageal region compared with the antrum (P=0.020).ConclusionIn this study, detection of GWT on CT often indicated pathologies which were subsequently confirmed endoscopically. Pathological findings were detected in 83% of these patients, with approximately 30% determined to be malignant. Endoscopic evaluation is recommended when GWT is reported on a CT scan.© 2021 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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