Duodenogastric reflux: an update.

Although the role of duodenogastric reflux in the pathogenesis of reflux gastritis is firmly established, for other foregut diseases, such as chronic gastritis, esophagitis, functional dyspepsia, peptic ulcer, and malignancy, it remains controversial and only speculative. The aim of this paper is to review merits and flaws of the methods currently used for the detection of duodenogastric reflux, with emphasis on the newly developed method for 24-h bilirubin detection in the gastric and esophageal content, by a fiberoptic small-size probe (Bilitec 2000), and to summarize recent advances in understanding the role of duodenogastric reflux in foregut disorders, in an attempt to identify topics for future research.