To most of the cit­i­zens, stress and ir­reg­u­lar eat­ing pat­terns may lead to stom­ach pains and oth­er symp­toms such as in­di­ges­tion, heart­burn, etc. Also, the symp­toms of ear­ly stage of gas­tric can­cer are not ob­vi­ous, Gas­troscopy check-up acts as an im­por­tant role in ear­ly de­tec­tion and treat­ment of gas­tric can­cer.

Dur­ing the Gas­troscopy, the doc­tor will use a gas­tro­scope, which is flex­i­ble and has a di­am­e­ter less than that of a lit­tle fin­ger, to ex­am­ine your oe­soph­a­gus, stom­ach and the first part of your small bow­el called the duo­de­num. Also, the doc­tor may need to take some tis­sue sam­ples (biop­sies) from the lin­ing of your up­per di­ges­tive tract for analy­sis. The sam­ples will be re­tained for ex­am­i­na­tion un­der mi­croscopy. It can help ex­am­ine for dis­eases of the stom­ach such as ul­cers, bleed­ing, tu­mors and He­li­cobac­ter py­lori in­fec­tions.

Suit­able for per­son with be­low symp­toms / sit­u­a­tions:

• Ab­dom­i­nal pain, in­di­ges­tion, heart­burn

• Vom­it­ing, dif­fi­cul­ty swal­low­ing

• Anaemia

• Sus­pect­ed of hav­ing polyp or tu­mor

• Fam­i­ly his­to­ry of gas­tric can­cer

• He­li­cobac­ter py­lori in­fec­tion

• Se­vere in­di­ges­tion

• Smok­ing habit

Prepar­ing for Gas­troscopy

• The gas­troscopy could be done in en­doscopy cen­tres or in hos­pi­tals, and could se­lect un­der lo­cal anes­the­sia or mon­i­tored anes­thet­ic care.

• Pa­tient is re­quired not to eat any­thing at least 6 hours be­fore the test.

• You must let the doc­tor know if there is a chance that you might be preg­nant.

• You should also in­form the doc­tor of the drugs that you are on, es­pe­cial­ly drugs that af­fect your blood glu­cose lev­els and clot­ting.