The frequency of visceral and phenotypic markers in patients with the combination of undifferentiated connective tissue disease and gastroesophageal reflux disease

Objective: The aim: The aim of the research was to study the prevalence of visceral and phenotypic markers of UCTD syndrome in patients with GERD for the purpose of early diagnosis of this comorbidity.

Patients and methods: Materials and methods: The study included 120 patients: 75 patients (Group II) - GERD was on the background of UCTD, 45 (Group I ) - the patients with GERD. The average age of the patients was 42.05 ± 6.5 years. Evaluations of UCTD's were performed accordingly to the criteria recommended by M. Moska et al., A. Doria et al., T. I. Kadurina, L. M. Abbakumova in the modification of T. Milkovskaya-Dimitrova, and the degree of their expression on the scale of T. Y. Smolnova.

Results: Results: Among the examined patients, the specific criteria for the certain connective tissue diseases were detected in the patients with UCTD from 2.7 and 20.0% more often. Bone, joint and skin phenotypic signs of dysplasia were observed in patients with GERD associated with UCTD by 4-4.5 times more often. Various abnormalities of internal organs development were detected in the majority of patients of Group II, namely in 88.0%, and only in 6.6% of the patients of Group I. According to the data on daily pH monitoring, esophagus AET constituted 4.6% of the total monitoring period in Group I and 5.48% in the patients of Group II. The number of refluxes with pH<4 recorded in the patients of Group I constituted 57±8 episodes, and 79±6 episodes in the patients of Group II.

Conclusion: Conclusions: The obtained data indicated that the number of pathological GER was significantly higher in the setting of comorbidity. Our research also showed that the chances of diagnosing Reynaud's Syndrome, arthralgia, unmotivated body weight loss, dysphagia, skin rash, oral ulcers, proximal muscle weakness in the patients with GERD associated with UCTD are higher in comparison with the patients with GERD without comorbidity (р<0.05). This should necessarily be taken into account in the early diagnosis and when assigning a complex therapy in case of this pathology.