CLINICAL PRESENTATION OF ABDOMINAL PROBLEMS

CLINICAL PRESENTATION OF ABDOMINAL PROBLEMS

Pain, weight loss, anorexia or vomiting, jaundice, abdominal bloating/distension, presence of a lump, alteration of bowel habit and blood loss or anaemia are the common clinical presentations of abdominal pathology . It is important to be vigilant about insidious presentations of malignancies. Classic examples are right colon cancer presenting with symptoms - of anaemia, metastatic liver cancer with weight loss, gastric cancer with loss of appetite, ovarian cancer with abdominal distension and malignant obstruction of the extrahepatic biliary tree presenting with jaundice.