How to diagnose gastroesophageal reflux

Gastroesophageal reflux is a disease with a relatively high incidence in daily life. It is more common in people over 30 years old, especially obese people over 30 years old are more likely to suffer from this disease. So how should this gastroesophageal reflux disease be diagnosed? In fact, this requires patients to undergo endoscopic examination.

What tests are needed to diagnose gastroesophageal reflux disease?

If you want to diagnose gastroesophageal reflux disease, theoretically, you should find out whether the contents of the stomach have flowed into the esophagus, so you need 24-hour esophageal pH monitoring and 24-hour impedance monitoring. However, this test requires inserting a tube from the nostril into the esophagus to detect whether gastric acid is refluxed into the esophagus. In addition to the symptoms of reflux of gastric contents, gastroesophageal reflux disease sometimes causes esophageal inflammation and damage to the esophageal mucosa. At this time, endoscopic examination can detect whether there is reflux esophagitis.

If there is no problem with the endoscopy, the diagnosis is often made based on the patient's most typical symptoms, because 60% of patients do not have esophagitis during endoscopic examinations, so the diagnosis of these patients depends on typical symptoms.

What are the most typical symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease? Because gastric acid refluxes, the patient will have a burning sensation that transmits from the bottom to the top. The medical term for this is heartburn. In addition to heartburn, sometimes you can feel something coming up, even into your mouth, with a bitter taste. This is called reflux. These stomach contents should not reflux, but because the anti-reflux barrier function is weak and poor, and the cardia is loose, it refluxes up. This is the most typical symptom of gastroesophageal reflux. Often based on these most typical symptoms, doctors will initially consider that it may be gastroesophageal reflux disease.

When considering the possibility of gastroesophageal reflux disease, there is another diagnostic method, which is also a treatment method, which is to use medication to control stomach acid and see if the symptoms are relieved. If symptoms improve after acid suppression, it means that these symptoms are caused by acid reflux. The most commonly used drug to suppress gastric acid is the proton pump inhibitor (PPI), so this diagnostic method is called the PPI test, which is used to ultimately confirm whether the patient has gastroesophageal reflux disease.