Age and alarm symptoms do not predict endoscopic findings among patients with dyspepsia: a multicentre database study

Introduction-Symptoms of dyspepsia are common but most patients do not have major upper gastrointestinal pathology. Endoscopy is recommended for dyspe ptic patients over the age of 45, or those with certain "alarm" symptoms. W e have evaluated the effectiveness of age and "alarm" symptoms for predicti ng major endoscopic findings in six practising endoscopy centres. Methods-Clinical variables of consecutive patients with dyspepsia symptoms undergoing upper endoscopy examinations were recorded using a common endosc opy database. Patients who had no previous upper endoscopy or barium radiog raphy were included. Stepwise multivariate logistic regression was used to identify predictors of endoscopic findings. The accuracy of these for predi cting endoscopic findings was evaluated with receiver operating characteris tic analysis. The sensitivity and specificity of age thresholds from 30 to 70 years were evaluated. Results-Major pathology (tumour, ulcer, or stricture) was found at endoscop y in 787/3815 (21%) patients with dyspepsia. Age, male sex, bleeding, and a naemia were found to be significant but weak independent predictors of endo scopic findings. A multivariate prediction rule based on these factors had poor predictive accuracy (c statistic=0.62). Using a simplified prediction rule of age greater than or equal to 45 years or the presence of any "alarm " symptom, sensitivity was 87% and specificity was 26%. Increasing or decre asing the age cut off did not significantly improve the predictive accuracy . Conclusions-Age and the presence of "alarm" symptoms are not effective pred ictors of endoscopic findings among patients with dyspepsia. Better clinica l prediction strategies are needed to identify patients with significant up per gastrointestinal pathology.