Chest pain and palpitations in postmenopausal women with mitral valve prolapse: is there a gastro‐oesophageal origin?

INTRODUCTION mitral valve prolapse(MVP) is a common disease in women, causing chest pain and palpitation, due to structural and functional valve abnormality, sometime associated with gastro-esophageal-reflux-disease(GERD).This is a challenging clinical problem in clinical practice,requires targeted diagnostic assessment,to identify the underlying causes of the symptoms because treatment needs to be tailored,according to the causes themselves, to resolve the symptoms. Our aim is to assess the prevalence of GERD in a population of postmenopausal women affected by MVP and if there is any correlation between the two conditions. PATIENTS AND METHODS MVP diagnosis was performed by echocardiograpic examination,according to ASE(American-Society-Echocardiography) criteria. 289 consecutive MVP women,symptomatic for chest pain and palpitation,were included,250 consecutive women without MVP, symptomatic for chest pain and palpitation were control group(CG).GERD diagnosis was performed according to 2013 ACG(American-College-Gastroenterology) criteria,women affected by thyroid disorders, all heart disease, including mitral disease with moderate or severe mitral regurgitation,gastrointestinal diseases assessed by gastroscopy were excluded. RESULTS 31(11%) women were affected by GERD,among 289 with MVP, 11(4.4%) women were affected by GERD,among 250 on CG,Chi-squared 8.1,Odds ratio 2.7,c.i.95%,p