[Endoscopic and biopsy findings in the esophageal, gastric and duodenal mucosa before and after radiotherapy for Hodgkin's disease].

Esophago-gastro-duodenoscopies with multiple mucosa biopsies were performed before and after irradiation of the mantle field or the spleen pedicle in 13 patients with Hodgkin's disease in stage I and II. For the irradiation the photons of a 4 MeV linear accelerator were applied with focal doses of 40 to 44 Gy. Contrast simulator radiographs were made in order to verify the position within the irradiation field of the organs from which biopsies were taken. In 0/10 patients examined before the irradiation, 0/5 patients examined less than 15 weeks after the irradiation, and 0/12 patients examined 15 weeks or later after the irradiation, histomorphologic investigation of the mucosa of the esophagus showed no pathologic findings. With the same intervals of examination related to irradiation, the gastric mucosa showed a pathologic histomorphology in 1/13, 7/9, and 5/9 patients, respectively, and the duodenal mucosa in 0/13, 5/9, and 2/9 patients, respectively. With the exception of one ulcer in the duodenal bulb the histopathologic findings as well as the macroscopic findings were neither significant nor characteristic, i.e. not radiospecific. Most of these findings were inflammatory alterations of the mucosa, erosions, and capillarectasies.