Prevalence of gastro-esophageal reflux disease in patients who attended the emergency room]

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a well-known important cause of non-cardiac chest pain (NCCP). It has been shown that in western countries this condition can be in 22-66% of the cases. However, this situation is unclear in Japanese hospitals. We performed this study to clarify the frequency of GERD in NCCP patients who attended the emergency room. METHODS: We investigated the final diagnosis of the patients with chest pain who attended the emergency room of our hospital in March, June, September and December of 2005. RESULTS: Forty patients with NCCP attended the emergency room in the study periods. In these patients, only one patient (2.5%) was diagnosed as GERD. Conclusions: The results of this study showed that the frequency of GERD in NCCP patients of emergency room of Japan is lower than that of western countries.