Simple XXXX : age threshold for early endoscopy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

@entity1 @entity344 @entity5 @entity2210
OBJECTIVE: To establish an optimal age threshold for endoscopy referral in @entity1 with simple @entity2210 in the setting of European developing country (Bosnia and Herzegovina) with low availability and high workload of endoscopy units. METHODS: We reviewed @entity1 information on all upper endoscopies performed during a 6-year period (2000-2005). Different age thresholds were evaluated in terms of their predictive power for absence of @entity5 . RESULTS: A total of 82 of 4403 (1.86%) dyspeptic @entity1 had @entity344 . Age cutoffs of 40 years for @entity1 and 45 years for @entity1 had the best predictive power, without any cases of upper @entity344 below those thresholds. Age cutoffs of 45 years for @entity1 and 50 years for @entity1 also had excellent negative predictive values (99.7 and 99.9%, respectively) with 1.45 and 0.98 cases of missed upper @entity344 per 1000 endoscopies, respectively. A total of 1709 of 4403 (38.8%) of endoscopies might have been avoided in @entity1 of less than 45 and @entity1 of less than 50 with @entity2210 . CONCLUSION: (i) Age thresholds for endoscopy referral are lower than in Western countries and should be different for @entity1 and @entity1 . (ii) Cutoff values of 40 and 45 years for @entity1 and @entity1 , respectively, are completely safe to use. (iii) Thresholds of 45 years for males and 50 years for females have a small level of risk of missing @entity344 , but are acceptable to use in areas of low availability of endoscopy.
