Management of functional dyspepsia
From the insufficient understanding of the
pathogenic mechanisms of functional disorders
stems, to the difficulty of setting up diagnostic
and therapeutic guidelines. Furthermore, there
is a logical incongruity between the diagnostic
criteria for FD and its management. Although a
diagnosis of FD requires the absence of any
structural disease, including at endoscopy,
management guidelines support empiric antisecretory
or prokinetic therapy in patients with
suspected FD who show no alarm symptoms
(35). Endoscopy is recommended only in those
cases where alarm symptoms are present or patients
are non-responders to at least 4 weeks of
empiric therapy. As such, a vast majority of FD
patients will most likely receive treatment without
undergoing endoscopy for diagnosis confirmation.
The first step in evaluating any patient is history
taking and physical examination, which
can help suggest either a structural or a functional
disorder. Routine lab tests (e.g.: blood
count) can also be helpful in an initial workup
of the patient.
In addition, the physician needs to pay attention
to the so-called „alarm symptoms”,
which increase the likelihood of a structural
disease (Table 2). Any of these signs and symptoms
requires an endoscopic study to assess a
possible malignancy. The American Society of
Gastroenterology (ASGE)the fact that the positive predictive value of
these symptoms is low (11%). However, their
negative predictive value in excluding gastrointestinal
malignancy is very high, approximately
97% (36). This is the logical consequence of the
fact that only 2% of dyspeptic syndromes are
caused by esophageal or gastric cancer, 30
times fewer than functional dyspepsia (37).
Conversely, the presence of alarm symptoms
provides reasonable guidance, and has been
included in consensus recommendations on
functional dyspepsia management.
Excluding gastroesophageal reflux disease
(GERD) as the cause of dyspeptic symptoms is
also of paramount importance because GERD
has a different treatment and prognosis and requires
a particular management strategy involving
long-term proton pump inhibitor therapy
(IPP) and active surveillance for reflux esophagitis,
Barrett’s esophagus as well as esophageal
cancer. Many GERD patients are diagnosed
with functional dyspepsia because of the lack
of structural abnormalities in endoscopic studies
and the great variety of symptoms of functional
dyspepsia (including heartburn) which in
turn has lead to confusing results in many clinical
trials (38).
A drug-induced dyspepsia must be also taken
into account, especially nonsteroidal antiinflammatory
drugs (NSAIDs) commonly associated
with dyspepsia. In this case, the offending
agent should be discontinued, if possible, or a
proton pump inhibitor can be added (PPI) (39).
Patients on long term NSAID treatment can be
considered at risk for peptic ulcer disease and
the physician should decide whether endoscopy
is warranted from the first visit.
The optimal approach for a patient with uninvestigated
dyspeptic symptoms is far from being
decided. Several strategies for the management
of these patients have been proposed,
but several systematic reviews have failed to
settle the dispute.
The options taken into discussion were:
1. Prompt endoscopy
2. Empiric antisecretory therapy
3. Noninvasive testing for Helicobacter
pylori, followed by treatment or endoscopy if
positive (test-and-treat strategy) guidelines emphasize