[24-hour esophageal pH monitoring in adults. Apropos of a series of 116 patients].

Between June 1994 and June 1996, we performed a 24-hour oesophageal pH monitoring in 116 adult patients. A retrospective analysis of the data is hereby presented. The principal indications include a chronic cough, recurrent laryngitis and noncardiac chest pain. In 65.5% of our cases, a pathological gastroesophageal reflux was found during pH monitoring. The symptom-index (SI) concerning the digestive and ENT symptoms did correlate in 1/3 of the cases while it was significant in only 15% of the cases with pulmonary and cardiac symptoms. 24-hour pH monitoring remains the method of choice for the study of gastroesophageal reflux and analysis of the SI is indispensable to evaluate the correlation of symptoms with episodes of reflux.