Scoring system designed to improve case selection for upper gastrointestinal endoscopy in upper Egypt

ABSTRACT

In an attempt to minimize unnecessary gastroscopic examinations, 405 patients attending for endoscopy to Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Unit, Assiut University Hospital were interviewed. The results were analyzed to determine which factors best discriminate between those with serious disease [129] and those without 276. The seven characteristics which best discriminated between the two groups were pain after 2 hours of meals, vomiting periodicity of symptoms, smoking, age, dysphagia and loss of weight. With the use of these features, a scoring system was devised to give an indication of the likelihood of finding serious disease in individual patients. The results showed that by utilizing this scoring system, it would be possible to reduce the number of examinations performed by 25.4% without missing any of the patients, yet still detect 100% of serious diseases. If confirmed in further prospective studies, this scoring system could assess more accurately the individual priority for endoscopy and enable optimum use of our limited resources