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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Endosc. Sep 16, 2025; 17(9): 110476
Published online Sep 16, 2025. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v17.i9.110476
Published online Sep 16, 2025. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v17.i9.110476
Addressing gastrointestinal disorders in rural Ethiopia: Success of a weekend outreach colonoscopy service
Guda M Roro, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Addis Ababa University, College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa 55215, Lideta Sub city, Ethiopia
Elias M Roro, Department of Public Health, Wollega University, Nekemte 55215, Oromiya, Ethiopia
Dabessa M Abebe, Department of Surgery, Jimma University, Jima 378, Oromiya, Ethiopia
Author contributions: Roro GM led the conception of the study, acquisition of data, design of the study, and drafting of the article; Roro GM, Roro EM, and Abebe DM participated in data cleaning and analysis and interpretation of data; All authors participated in drafting the article, contributed in critical revisions of intellectual content of the manuscript, and provided final approval of the version of the article to be published.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Jimma University Institute of Health (No. JUIH/IRB/359/23).
Informed consent statement: All patients, or their legal guardians, provided informed written consent prior to the colonoscopy procedure.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Data sharing statement: Microsoft Excel data on the basic information used for the study is available upon request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Guda M Roro, Assistant Professor, Consultant, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Addis Ababa University, College of Health Sciences, Zambia Street, Addis Ababa 55215, Lideta Sub city, Ethiopia.
Received: June 10, 2025
Revised: July 7, 2025
Accepted: August 4, 2025
Published online: September 16, 2025
Processing time: 97 Days and 15 Hours
Revised: July 7, 2025
Accepted: August 4, 2025
Published online: September 16, 2025
Processing time: 97 Days and 15 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Over the past 6 years, we have performed over 6000 endoscopy procedures at an outreach site in southwest Ethiopia, a region lacking a functional endoscopy unit. Among the 1612 colonoscopy findings, the most common were nonspecific inflammation, colorectal masses, inflammatory bowel disease, and polyps. Notably, half of the colorectal cancer cases in this study occurred in patients under 50 with a prevalence of 18.8% in females and 10.8% in males. This contradicts the global trend in which the disease predominantly affects males and older individuals. Less than 5.0% of all patients underwent colonoscopy for screening or suspected colorectal cancer.