Colorectal wall thickening is a condition which is occasionally encountered on computed tomography (CT) investigations. Malignancies and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) may be the most common and most important pathologies in some cases. Our objective in this study was to evaluate colonoscopy results in patients with increased colorectal wall thickness identified on CT. Patients with colorectal wall thickening detected on abdominal CT taken for different indications in different healthcare facilities between October 2009 and March 2015 were evaluated. These patients were referred to gastroenterology department, received colonoscopy, and the results were compared retrospectively and statistically. A total of 132 patients having undergone colonoscopy for colonic wall thickening detected on CT were evaluated retrospectively. With the colonoscopies performed, malignancies were detected in 38 (28.8%), Crohn's disease in two (1.5%), diverticulitis in 18 (13.6%) and colorectal polyp in 30 (22.7%) patients. Colonoscopy results were normal in 44 patients. All patients with colorectal malignancies were over 60 years of age, yielding a statistically significant figure (p=0.01). The mean hemoglobin level was 12.8 g/dL in patients with normal colonoscopy as compared with 9.5 g/dL in those with malignancies (p=0.001). On multivariate analysis, hemoglobin and age were the only significant variables to predict an abnormal result on endoscopy. Detecting colonic wall thickening on CT may indicate malignancy, especially in patients who are over 50 years of age and have hemoglobin values less than 10 g/dL.
Keywords: Colonic wall thickening; Colonoscopy; Computed tomography.