Screening for dysphagia prior to initiating gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) therapy is beneficial to determine the risk of proton pump inhibitor (PPI) refractoriness GERD in individuals with systemic sclerosis. 

A prospective study was performed to determine the prevalence of the PPI-partial response GERD in patients with systemic sclerosis and also identify its predictors.

Systemic sclerosis patients (age 18–65 years) with GERD were treated with 20 mg omeprazole twice daily for about four weeks. At baseline and four weeks post-therapy, the following parameters were evaluated: (i) symptoms frequency by frequency scale for symptoms of GERD (FSSG), and (ii) symptom-grading severity by visual analogue scale (VAS).

A less than 50% improvement in VAS for the severity of symptom and acid reflux score by FSSG post-therapy was specified as PPI-partial response GERD. In total, 243 systemic sclerosis-GERD subjects were recruited; of whom 68.3% (n=166) had diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis. 

Half of the systemic sclerosis patients were PPI-partial response GERD since the PPI-partial response GERD was witnessed in 131 systemic sclerosis patients (prevalence 53.9%). According to the multivariate assessment, the only predictor of PPI-partial response GERD (odds ratio 1.82) in individuals with systemic sclerosis was esophageal dysphagia. Neither systemic sclerosis subset nor the severity of skin tightness were considerably related to the PPI-partial response GERD.

In systemic sclerosis individuals, screening for dysphagia prior to initiating GERD therapy is valuable to evaluate risk of PPI refractory GERD.