Provided by Mayo Clinic Staff: Beyond data on mortality and information about hospitalizations, we have limited insight into the natural course of gastroparesis. A small number of patients followed over more than 10 years had stable symptoms and gastric emptying rates, arguing against rapid and/or common progression in this group [56]. More than 70% of patients seen in a tertiary referral center required ongoing medical therapy during a time period of about 10 years, indicating that at least some symptoms indeed persist in the majority of affected individuals [15]. Several case series indicate that postinfectious forms of gastroparesis may be an exception from this rule with symptom resolution or at least improvement occurring in many patients within one year of the inciting event [14, 64–66]. The chronic illness certainly takes a toll with significant impairment of quality of life with significant lower scores on measures assessing physical and mental/emotional function [8, 10, 26]. At least one study pointed at an indirect impact of the chronic illness with high rates of un- or underemployment and, perhaps as a result, a high number of patients with low household incomes [10]. While a more recently published study of nearly 400 patients showed that patients reported median household incomes close to the national average, it also demonstrated the economic burden with less than half of the patients being employed at the time of enrollment and nearly one third having high rates of work absenteeism due to their disease [8] (see Box 3).
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 21:49:21 +0000
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