[Whole-course management strategies for gastroesophageal reflux disease: an evidence mapping study based on clinical...

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is one of the most common digestive diseases with high incidence, complicated clinical symptoms, difficulties in standard treatment, and heavy medical burden. At present, some GERD-relevant clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) have been issued by different countries and academic organizations, but some recommendations were inconsistent, which has caused some problems for the current clinical whole-course management of GERD. To summarize the relevant evidence among the CPGs on GERD and formulate the whole- course management strategies, we included GERD-relevant CPGs published or updated after 2010 by searching websites of guidelines, relevant professional societies, and electronic databases. We extracted the recommendations and summarized the evidence from the aspects of symptoms, epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment, which was presented in the form of evidence mapping. We included 24 CPGs, including three in Chinese and 21 in English. The clinical practice management strategies of GERD were formulated based on the evidence from the aspects of clinical symptoms, diagnostic methods, medical treatment, anti-reflux surgery and endoscopic treatment, psychological treatment, and traditional Chinese medicine treatment.