High resolution esophageal manometry and life exposure factors in non-cardiac chest pain patients with refractory gastroesophageal reflux disease

Background: Refractory gastroesophageal reflux disease (RGERD) is defined by the presence of troublesome GERD symptoms despite proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) treatments for 8-12 weeks. Non-cardiac chest pain (NCCP) is the most common atypical presentations. This study was aimed at clarifying the features of High Resolution Esophageal Manometry (HREM) and life exposure factors of NCCP in RGERD patients for guiding further therapeutic strategies. Methods: 83 RGERD patients were enrolled, in which 44 patients afflicted with NCCP as P group and 39 patients without NCCP as NP group. According to the endoscopy results, P group was further divided into reflux esophagitis group (RE group), non-erosive reflux disease group (NERD group) and Barrett’s esophagus group (BE group). HREM was performed to assess esophageal motility. Diverse questionnaires were conducted to evaluate severity of symptoms, quality of life, risk factors, degrees of anxiety and depression and so on. Results: a)Average resting pressures of the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), residual pressures of the LES and the esophageal distal contractile integral (DCI) score in P group were significantly lower than those in NP group (p<0.05). b)Average resting pressures of the upper esophageal sphincter (UES), residual pressures of the UES, lengths of the LES and the UES showed no difference between the two groups (p>0.05). c)Compared with NP group, the patients in P group had higher exposure to alcohol, coffee, sweets, overeating and stress (p<0.05). d)Anxiety and depression status of patients in P group were remarkably severer than those in NP group (p<0.05). e)The pain intensity in RE group and BE group was higher than NERD group (P<0.05), while there was no difference between RE group and BE group (P>0.05). Conclusions: Esophageal motility related anti-reflux barriers are much weaker in the RGERD patients with NCCP than those without NCCP, which mainly presents as the much lower average resting and residual pressures of the LES and DCI. Alcohol, coffee, sweets, overeating, stress, anxiety and depression are risk factors of RGERD-related NCCP. It’s suggested that the recovery of anti-reflux barriers and the avoidance of risk factors may be essential therapeutic strategies for improving the curative effect.