title: Ambulatory 24-hour esophageal manometry and pH-metry in patients with noncardiac chest pain, but no reflux symptoms.
abstract: The aim of this study is to determine the diagnostic value of 24-hour ambulatory esophageal manometry and pH-metry for patients with noncardiac chest pain (NCCP), but no reflux symptoms. Twenty-four hour ambulatory esophageal manometry and pH-metry was performed on 34 patients with NCCP, but no reflux symptoms. The pressure transducers were located 3, 8, and 13 cm above the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) and the pH probes were located 5 and 20 cm above the LES. An event marker was triggered by the patient for chest pain. Only 17 patients (50%) had at least one pain episode (total 81 episodes, range 1-19 episodes per person) during a 24-hour recording. Twenty-one chest pain episodes (26%) occurred during abnormal motility, whereas 4 episodes (5%) were associated with pH < 4, and 10 episodes (12%) had both abnormalities. The majority of chest pain episodes, 46 out of 81 events (57%), did not have any association with motility or pH abnormalities. Five of 7 patients (71%) with reflux-related chest pain and 8 of 11 patients (73%) with dysmotility-related chest pain had symptom association probability > 95%, indicating a significant association between chest pain and esophageal dysfunction. Our conclusion is that ambulatory esophageal manometry and pH-metry is a useful tool in the evaluation of NCCP, but only a few additional patients with reflux-related chest pain could be found in patients without reflux symptoms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan, Republic of China.
authors.forename: H K
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: C C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Tseng
authors.forename: C S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: G H
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002637:Chest Pain / Q000175:diagnosis*; D015154:Esophageal Motility Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004942:Esophagitis, Peptic / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D008297:Male; D008365:Manometry; D008875:Middle Aged