Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is arguably the most common disease encountered by the gastroenterologist. It is equally likely that the primary care providers will find that complaints related to reflux disease constitute a large proportion of their practice. The following guideline will provide an overview of GERD and its presentation, and recommendations for the approach to diagnosis and management of this common and important disease. The document will review the presentations of any risk factors for GERD, the diagnostic modalities and their recommendation for use and recommendations for medical, surgical and endoscopic management including comparative effectiveness of different treatments. Extraesophageal symptoms and complications will be addressed as will the evaluation and management of “refractory” GERD. The document will conclude with the potential risks and side effects of the main treatments for GERD and their implications for patient management. Each section of the document will present the key recommendations related to the section topic and a subsequent summary of the evidence supporting those recommendations. An overall summary of the key recommendations is presented in Table 1. A search of OVID Medline, Pubmed and ISI Web of Science was conducted for the years from 1960–2011 using the following major search terms and subheadings including “heartburn”, “acid regurgitation”, “GERD”, “lifestyle interventions”, “proton pump inhibitor (PPI)”, “endoscopic surgery,” “extraesophageal symptoms,” “Nissen fundoplication,” and “GERD complications.” We used systematic reviews and meta-analyses for each topic when available followed by a review of clinical trials.Table 1: Summary and strength of recommendationsTable 1: (continued)The GRADE system was used to evaluate the strength of the recommendations and the overall level of evidence (1,2). The level of evidence could range from “high” (implying that further research was unlikely to change the authors’ confidence in the estimate of the effect) to “moderate” (further research would be likely to have an impact on the confidence in the estimate of effect) or “low” (further research would be expected to have an important impact on the confidence in the estimate of the effect and would be likely to change the estimate). The strength of a recommendation was graded as “strong” when the desirable effects of an intervention clearly outweigh the undesirable effects and as “conditional” when there is uncertainty about the trade-offs. It is important to be aware that GERD is defined by consensus and as such is a disease comprising symptoms, end-organ effects and complications related to the reflux of gastric contents into the esophagus, oral cavity, and/or the lung. Taking into account the multiple consensus definitions previously published (3,4,5), the authors have used the following working definition to define the disease: GERD should be defined as symptoms or complications resulting from the reflux of gastric contents into the esophagus or beyond, into the oral cavity (including larynx) or lung. GERD can be further classified as the presence of symptoms without erosions on endoscopic examination (non-erosive disease or NERD) or GERD symptoms with erosions present (ERD). SYMPTOMS AND EPIDEMIOLOGY Epidemiologic estimates of the prevalence of GERD are based primarily on the typical symptoms of heartburn and regurgitation. A systematic review found the prevalence of GERD to be 10–20% of the Western world with a lower prevalence in Asia (6). Clinically troublesome heartburn is seen in about 6% of the population (7). Regurgitation was reported in 16% in the systematic review noted above. Chest pain may be a symptom of GERD, even the presenting symptom (2,3). Distinguishing cardiac from non-cardiac chest pain is required before considering GERD as a cause of chest pain. Although the symptom of dysphagia can be associated with uncomplicated GERD, its presence warrants investigation for a potential complication including an underlying motility disorder, stricture, ring, or malignancy (8). Chronic cough, asthma, chronic laryngitis, other airway symptoms and so-called extraesophageal symptoms are discussed in a subsequent section. Atypical symptoms including dyspepsia, epigastric pain, nausea, bloating, and belching may be indicative of GERD but overlap with other conditions. A systematic review found that ∼38% of the general population complained of dyspepsia. Dyspepsia was more frequent in GERD patients than those without. These patients were at risk for a new diagnosis of GERD. 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