RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Pepsin in saliva for the diagnosis of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease
JF Gut
JO Gut
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and British Society of Gastroenterology
SP 373
OP 380
DO 10.1136/gutjnl-2014-307049
VO 64
IS 3
A1 Jamal O Hayat
A1 Shirley Gabieta-Somnez
A1 Etsuro Yazaki
A1 Jin-Yong Kang
A1 Andrew Woodcock
A1 Peter Dettmar
A1 Jerry Mabary
A1 Charles H Knowles
A1 Daniel Sifrim
YR 2015
UL http://gut.bmj.com/content/64/3/373.abstract
AB Objective Current diagnostic methods for gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) have moderate sensitivity/specificity and can be invasive and expensive. Pepsin detection in saliva has been proposed as an ‘office-based’ method for GORD diagnosis. The aims of this study were to establish normal values of salivary pepsin in healthy asymptomatic subjects and to determine its value to discriminate patients with reflux-related symptoms (GORD, hypersensitive oesophagus (HO)) from functional heartburn (FH). Design 100 asymptomatic controls and 111 patients with heartburn underwent MII-pH monitoring and simultaneous salivary pepsin determination on waking, after lunch and dinner. Cut-off value for pepsin positivity was 16 ng/mL. Patients were divided into GORD (increased acid exposure time (AET), n=58); HO (normal AET and + Symptom Association Probability (SAP), n=26) and FH (normal AET and—SAP, n=27). Results 1/3 of asymptomatic subjects had pepsin in saliva at low concentration (0(0–59)ng/mL). Patients with GORD and HO had higher prevalence and pepsin concentration than controls (HO, 237(52–311)ng/mL and GORD, 121(29–252)ng/mL)(p<0.05). Patients with FH had low prevalence and concentration of pepsin in saliva (0(0–40) ng/mL). A positive test had 78.6% sensitivity and 64.9% specificity for diagnosis of GORD+HO (likelihood ratio: 2.23). However, one positive sample with >210 ng/mL pepsin suggested presence of GORD+HO with 98.2% specificity (likelihood ratio: 25.1). Only 18/84 (21.4%) of GORD+HO patients had 3 negative samples. Conclusion In patients with symptoms suggestive of GORD, salivary pepsin testing may complement questionnaires to assist office-based diagnosis. This may lessen the use of unnecessary antireflux therapy and the need for further invasive and expensive diagnostic methods.