Laryngopharyngeal reflux: news in diagnostics and treatment

Abstract

In the last fifty years, globalization and urbanization have significantly changed our lifestyles and our eating habits. We live hectic lifestyles and are exposed to many stressful situations every day, we consume readymade, quickly prepared food, carbonated and alcoholic beverages. All of this is accompanied by the food industry, which also acidifies all the foods to prolong their shelflife. As a consequence of bad eating habits, consuming food when you should rest, stress, but also the activities of the food industry, there has been an epidemic of reflux disease. Part of this disease is laryngopharyngeal reflux, a disease characterized by the return of gastric contents to the throat and surrounding organs, which leads to hoarseness, coughing, swallowing and breathing difficulty, and ultimately the development of benign and / or malignant changes in the larynx. In most patients, pepsin plays a key role in developing changes in the larynx and other organs, and its acidic medium serves to maintain proteolytic activity. In addition to pepsin, bile acid salts and other gastroduodenal proteins may play a role in the development of inflammatory changes in the mucosa of the upper aerodigestive tract. In most cases, we start laryngopharyngeal reflux therapy with medication, however this is wrong and ineffective. Therefore, it is important to emphasize that treatment must always begin with a change in diet, lifestyle and stress regulation. The treatment of laryngopharyngeal reflux must be individual and should involve a multidisciplinary team with a nutritionist, a psychologist and a psychiatrist.

Keywords

• laryngopharyngeal reflux – diagnosis
• etiology
• therapy; symptom assessment – methods; pepsin a; bile acids and salts; life style; feeding behavior; diet therapy; proton pump inhibitors – therapapeutic use