New approaches to the diagnosis of functional upper gut disease

Abstract Functional upper gut symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain, are a continuing challenge in gastroenterological practice. This article considers the approaches applied in recent years to evaluate motor function in the upper gut including manometry and radio‐nuclide transit studies, and symptom‐provocation tests such as balloon distension and pharmacologic stimulation. An approach is proposed that is based on positive symptomatic diagnosis of the disturbed pathophysiologic state, followed by treatment of this disturbance of function after a minimum of confirmatory investigations.