Manual treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a chronic condition caused by the reflux of stomach contents into the oesophagus. This reflux is usually associated with a dysfunction of the lower esophageal sphincter. Studies on manipulative therapy indicate that it plays an important role in the co-adjuvant treatment of reflux as well as in the prevention and treatment of reflux. ObjectiveTo conducta systematic review of the literature on the treatment of GERD with manual techniques with the aim of evaluating the methodological quality of the studies, summarizing the results, analyzing the effectiveness of the intervention and deriving possible recommendations for clinical practice and/or identifying further research needs. MethodologyThestudy is a systematic review with searches in the databases Bireme, Lilacs, PubMed, PEDro, Scielo, Cochrane and Google Scholar in English and Portuguese. The manual therapy techniques used in the selected studies and the reports on the effectiveness of these interventions were extracted. The PRISMA reporting guidelines were used to structure the review and the PEDro scale to assess the methodological quality of the included studies.ResultsA total of6 clinical trials were found with a total of 218 participants, which were analyzed using objective and subjective criteria.Regarding methodological quality, 3 studies achieved a score of over 7, i.e. high quality, while one study achieved a score of 4 and 2 studies a score of 3, indicating low internal validity. The observed results show positive clinical effects of visceral manual therapy for gastroesophageal reflux in adults.ConclusionThe research results indicate that the use of manual techniques in the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux shows positive results in studies with high methodological quality. However, due to the small number and other studies with low scores on the PEDro scale, caution is warranted and further experimental studies are needed.Brendon dos Santos C, Artioli PD, Flor Bertolini GR. Manual therapy as a management approach for gastroesophageal reflux disease: A systematic review. International Journal of Osteopathic Medicine, Volume 46, 2022, 45-50.