Pyogenic granuloma of the gastrointestinal tract

Abstract

Abstract Introduction: Pyogenic granuloma (PG) or granuloma pyogenicum is essentially a capillary hemangioma on the skin or a mucosal surface which shows an exophytic growth pattern and has a lobulated appearance. The most common sites are skin (40%) and mucosal surfaces (predominantly oral cavity, 60%). We intend to report all available cases of PG of gastrointestinal (GI) tract, diagnosed at the Henry Ford hospital, a tertiary referral center. Patients and Methods: A retrospective review of pathological database was performed on all GI biopsies in the last 10 years using diagnostic codes and pathology codes searching for PG of the GI tract. Results: A total of 23 cases of pathologically diagnosed PG was diagnosed over a 10 year period. The median age of patients was 64 with almost equal gender distribution (47.8% were males, and 52.2% were females). The most common location of PG was sigmoid colon (65.2%), esophagus (17.4%) and transverse colon (13%). PG presented as a polyp in 16 patients (69.6%). The most common indication for endoscopy in these cases was screening colonoscopy (30.4% cases). Discussion: PG of GI tract is rare. To date, only about 15–20 cases have been reported in the literature and most cases have been reported from Japan and Korea. This is the largest case series of this rare pathological lesion of the GI tract. Most cases of PG were diagnosed on an endoscopy done for an unrelated reason in our series. Hence, most cases were asymptomatic, unlike previously reported cases which were mostly associated with GI bleeding.