What is the Role of Endoscopy and Dyspepsia?
A number of diagnostic options are available to the clinician confronted with a dyspeptic patient. He or she could make a diagnosis based on symptoms alone, could proceed to endoscopy or an upper gastrointestinal barium study or could treat empirically and base diagnosis on the response to therapy. Based on the most popular hypotheses for the etiology of dyspepsia, the main classes of influenced by whether the patient is seen in a primary care physician s office, a specialist referral center, or the hospital intensive care unit. The second question we need to address is what influence endoscopic findings have in management, in other words, what findings really matter? In the area of gastroesophageal reflux disease, endoscopy may prove diagnostic, can assist in predicting prognosis and, in particular, the likelihood of response to various classes of therapeutic agents and, most impontantly, will detect Barrett s esophagus. For peptic ulcer disease, endoscopy will again prove diagnostic,
