Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Aug 14, 2020; 26(30): 4523-4536
Published online Aug 14, 2020. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i30.4523
Predictive value of alarm symptoms in patients with Rome IV dyspepsia: A cross-sectional study
Zhong-Cao Wei, Qian Yang, Qi Yang, Juan Yang, Xin-Xing Tantai, Xin Xing, Cai-Lan Xiao, Yang-Lin Pan, Jin-Hai Wang, Na Liu
Zhong-Cao Wei, Qian Yang, Xin-Xing Tantai, Xin Xing, Cai-Lan Xiao, Jin-Hai Wang, Na Liu, Department of Gastroenterology, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710004, Shaanxi Province, China
Qi Yang, Juan Yang, Department of Gastroenterology, Xi’an No. 3 Hospital, the Affiliated Hospital of Northwest University, Xi’an 710018, Shaanxi Province, China
Yang-Lin Pan, State Key Laboratory of Cancer Biology, National Clinical Research Center for Digestive Diseases and Xijing Hospital of Digestive Diseases, Air Force Medical University, Xi’an 710032, Shaanxi Province, China
Author contributions: Wei Z-C, Pan Y-L, Wang J-H and Liu N designed the research; Wei Z-C, Yang Q, Yang Q and Yang J performed the research; Tantai X-X, Xing X and Xiao C-L contributed analytic tools; Wei Z-C and Yang Q analyzed the data; Wei Z-C, Pan Y-L, Wang J-H and Liu N wrote the paper.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University.
Informed consent statement: Verbal informed consent was obtained from all participants.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The guidelines of the STROBE statement have been adopted in preparing the manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Na Liu, PhD, Doctor, Division of Gastroenterology, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Xi’an Jiaotong University, No. 157 Xiwu Road, Xi’an 710004, Shaanxi Province, China. liunafmmu@163.com
Received: April 20, 2020
Peer-review started: April 20, 2020
First decision: May 15, 2020
Revised: May 26, 2020
Accepted: July 23, 2020
Article in press: July 23, 2020
Published online: August 14, 2020
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

No studies have evaluated the predictive value of alarm symptoms for organic dyspepsia and organic upper gastrointestinal (GI) diseases based on Rome IV criteria in the Chinese population.

Research motivation

Previous studies have shown that the sensitivity of alarm symptoms for predicting cases with upper GI malignancies is unsatisfactory. The predictive value of alarm symptoms requires further research.

Research objectives

To evaluate the predictive value of alarm symptoms of dyspeptic patients based on Rome IV criteria.

Research methods

We performed a cross-sectional study of dyspepsia patients who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria from March 2018 to January 2019.

Research results

Based on the Rome IV criteria, alarm symptoms were of limited value in differentiating organic dyspepsia and organic upper GI diseases from functional dyspepsia.

Research conclusions

Most alarm symptoms had poor predictive value for organic dyspepsia and organic upper GI diseases based on Rome IV criteria. The clinical characteristics of patients with epigastric pain syndrome, postprandial distress syndrome and the two combined were not significantly different.

Research perspective

Gastroscopic screening of dyspepsia patients should not be based solely on alarm symptoms. In the future, the predictive value of alarm symptoms still needs to be confirmed by larger sample studies from multicenters all over China.