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Digestive Failure Syndrome - Symptoms
Last reviewed: 06.07.2025
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In the clinical picture of dyspepsia, depending on the prevalence of signs of digestive disorders in various parts of the gastrointestinal tract, a distinction is made between gastric, intestinal, and sometimes pancreatogenic forms.
The occurrence of gastric dyspepsia is associated with atrophic gastritis, which is known to be characterized by secretory insufficiency, as well as with decompensated pyloric stenosis and gastric cancer. The clinical picture of this dyspepsia is characterized by loss of appetite, a feeling of heaviness, distension and pressure in the epigastric region after eating, belching air, food with a rotten smell, an unpleasant taste in the mouth, nausea, flatulence, and diarrhea. When examining gastric secretion, achylia or achlorhydria are detected.
The occurrence of intestinal dyspepsia is caused by chronic inflammatory diseases of the intestine, especially the small intestine. The main clinical signs of this form of dyspepsia are rumbling and surging in the intestine, bloating, heaviness and distension in the abdomen, significant gas discharge, unstable stool with a predominance of diarrhea (liquid feces with a putrid or sour odor).
Coprological examination most often reveals intestinal steatorrhea, when fatty acids, soaps, amylorrhea, creatorrhea, increased ammonia content, decreased stercobilin. Excretion of indican with urine is increased, the amount of bilirubin and bile acids in it is increased, and urobilin is decreased. X-ray examination of the upper digestive tract most often reveals accelerated passage of the contrast agent through the small intestine. When sowing gastric and small intestinal contents by the method of serial dilutions, various microorganisms are found - more than 10,000 cells in 1 ml. The degree of disturbance of cavity digestion can be judged by the content of enzymes in the intestinal contents and feces (enterokinase and alkaline phosphatase), as well as by the nature of the glycemic curve with a starch load, a study with trioleate glycerol and olive oil labeled with 131 I.
The occurrence of pancreatogenic dyspepsia is associated with exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. The clinical picture of this dyspepsia is dominated by anorexia, flatulence, rumbling, transfusion, colicky abdominal pain, and profuse "pancreatogenic" diarrhea. In coprological analyses, pancreatic steatorrhea (mainly due to neutral fat), amylorrhea, and creatorrhea predominate.
In intestinal diseases, all 3 types of dyspepsia are often combined.
In fact, all patients with chronic enteritis and enterocolitis had grade I and II gastrointestinal insufficiency syndrome, and it was also characteristic of Crohn's disease, Whipple's disease, and gluten enteropathy.