Pattern of gastrointestinal diseases in adult patients admitted to Samtah General Hospital, Gizan region, Saudi Arabia.

To determine the relative frequencies of gastrointestinal diseases (GI) in patients admitted to Samtah General Hospital, Gizan, the records of 2,442 adults admitted to the medical and surgical services for gastrointestinal diseases during the period 1413 to 1416 were analyzed retrospectively. 1,028 patients had acute appendicitis. The remaining 1,414 patients were admitted for various other GI diseases. In these 1,414 patients the commonest diseases were gastrointestinal infections (36.4%), peptic ulcer disease (19%), gall bladder disease (18.5%), viral hepatitis and its sequelae (20.7%). Despite the high prevalence of cholelithiasis, acute pancreatitis was uncommon (0.1 %). Inflammatory bowel disease was rare. There was no gender - related difference in the prevalence of gastrointestinal infections, peptic ulcer disease and carcinoma of the stomach. Males were significantly more afflicted than females with viral hepatitis (p< 0.0001), cirrhosis of the liver (p< 0.0001), hepatocellular carcinoma (p< 0.0005), variceal bleeding (p< 0.0005), and peptic ulcer bleeding (p< 0.005). As a large proportion of our patients had preventable diseases, it is expected that immunization and other public health measures will reduce the frequency of these diseases in the future.