Symptom criteria do not distinguish between functional and organic dyspepsia

Design:

Retrospective study.

Setting:

Teaching hospital, Sweden.

Objective:

To find out if various diagnostic criteria could distinguish organic from non-organic causes of dyspepsia.

Subjects:

635 patients previously interviewed by computer questionnaire.

Interventions:

Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, laboratory tests, clinical examination.

Main outcome measure:

Differentiation between organic and functional dyspepsia.

Results:

106 patients had functional dyspepsia. Of these 83 had ulcer-like dyspepsia, 76 motility-like dyspepsia, and 50 reflux-like dyspepsia. Eight patients had unspecified dyspepsia.

Conclusions:

There was a considerable overlap between different subgroups, and the criteria did not differentiate between organic and non-organic causes of dyspepsia though the symptom criteria in most cases showed an independent value in discriminating between different subgroups. The clinical usefulness of the criteria remains to be shown. Copyright © 1998 Taylor and Francis Ltd.