Published 15 September 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1400
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1400

Clinical Review

Investigating dyspepsia

Rocco Maurizio Zagari, assistant professor of gastroenterology , Lorenzo Fuccio, research fellow in gastroenterology, Franco Bazzoli, professor of gastroenterology

1 Department of Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology, University of Bologna, 40138, Bologna, Italy

Correspondence to: F Bazzoli franco.bazzoli@unibo.it

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


Around 25-40% of adults have chronic and recurrent dyspeptic symptoms
Most patients have no structural lesions and malignancy is rare, especially in Western populations
Two empirical strategies show results—a non-invasive test for H pylori and treatment of H pylori positive patients with eradication therapy (test and treat), and empirical treatment with proton pump inhibitors
The 13C-urea breath test and stool antigen test are the recommended non-invasive tests for H pylori infection. Patients should stop proton pump inhibitors two weeks before and antibiotics four weeks before performing either of these tests


Dyspepsia is a complex condition comprising chronic and recurrent symptoms related to the upper gastrointestinal tract. The cardinal symptoms are epigastric pain and discomfort, including postprandial fullness and early satiety, which may overlap with heartburn and regurgitation. Box 1 shows the various definitions of dyspepsia. Around 25-40% of adults in the general population have dyspepsia,1 2 and dyspepsia accounts for 2-5% . . . [Full text of this article]


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