COMMENTARY

Neurogastroenterology

Hypnosis for non-cardiac chest pain

O S Palsson¹, W E Whitehead²

¹ Center for Functional Gastrointestinal and Motility Disorders, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
² Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor W E Whitehead
Campus Box 7555, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7555, USA; William_Whitehead@med.unc.edu

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Hypnosis may be an effective treatment for patients with non-cardiac chest pain that has not responded to acid inhibition

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Keywords: non-cardiac chest pain; hypnosis; gastro-oesophageal reflux disease; irritable bowel syndrome; functional dyspepsia

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Non-cardiac chest pain (NCCP) is a condition defined by recurrent episodes of substernal chest pain suggestive of coronary artery disease in patients in whom no cardiac cause can be found after a comprehensive evaluation.¹ It is aetiologically heterogeneous, and the cause in individual patients often remains unclear even after thorough investigation. Patients with NCCP are frequently not reassured by negative investigations and are persistent in their pursuit of further medical evaluations for possible cardiovascular disease. The consequent impairment in personal and occupational functioning and subjective well being can be substantial. A recent estimate places the annual cost of health care services provided in the USA to treat NCCP at 6.5 billion dollars.²

The most commonly identified cause of NCCP symptoms is gastro-oesophageal reflux disease. Consequently, a therapeutic trial of a proton pump inhibitor is often recommended to confirm the diagnosis and as the firstline treatment.^3,4 However, a variety of . . . [Full text of this article]

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