What is the prevalence of clinically significant endoscopic findings in subjects with dyspepsia? Systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Evolving definitions of dyspepsia may lead to differences in the prevalence of clinically significant findings encountered at upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy in sufferers. However, few studies report the prevalence of endoscopic findings in individuals with dyspepsia. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis examining this.

METHODS: MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched through April 2010 to identify relevant articles (23,457 citations). Eligible studies recruited adults from the community, workplace, blood donation or screening clinics, family physician offices, or internal medicine clinics. Studies were required to report prevalence of dyspepsia and perform upper gastrointestinal endoscopy in a proportion of, or all, participants. Prevalence of clinically significant endoscopic findings in subjects with and without dyspepsia was pooled for all studies, and compared using odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals.

RESULTS: Of 240 papers evaluated, 151 reported prevalence of dyspepsia. Nine reported prevalence of endoscopic findings among 5389 participants. Erosive esophagitis was the most common abnormality encountered (pooled prevalence 13.4%) followed by peptic ulcer (pooled prevalence 8.0%). The only finding encountered more frequently in individuals with dyspepsia, compared with those without, was peptic ulcer (odds ratio, 2.07; 95% confidence interval, 1.52-2.82). Prevalence of erosive esophagitis was lower when the Rome criteria were used to define dyspepsia compared with a broad definition (6% vs 20%).

CONCLUSIONS: Erosive esophagitis was the most common finding encountered at endoscopy for dyspepsia, though prevalence was lower when the Rome criteria were used to define dyspepsia. Only peptic ulcer was more common in individuals with dyspepsia.