[Are stomach polyps an indicator of colonic carcinoma and colonic polyps an indicator of stomach carcinoma?].

Over a period of six years a total of 407 patients with polyps of the gastrointestinal tract were examined by gastroscopy and coloscopy and the findings analysed retrospectively. Among patients with colon polyps 10.5% were found also to have polypoid gastric lesions, among those with adenoma of the colon the prevalence was 11.7%. Only 2.4% of simultaneously diagnosed gastric lesions were found to be malignant or premalignant, a figure similar to the population average. But in patients with more than ten polyps of the colon both the prevalence of polypoid gastric changes and the significance of polyps with respect to precancerous lesions were clearly increased. On the other hand, in patients with epithelial polyps and/or glandular cysts colon polyps were found in 45%, in 42% with precancerous changes (adenoma). Thus patients with epithelial gastric polyps and glandular cysts probably constitute a group with a real additional risk of colon carcinoma. Regular coloscopy will thus reveal precancerous changes (adenoma) in the colon of 42% of such patients; coloscopic polypectomy will be an effective prophylactic measure against carcinoma of the colon.