Common Diseases and Symptoms of the Digestive System Summarized by Modern Western Medicine

According to the classification of modern Western medicine, the common diseases of the digestive system mainly include the following:

I. Esophageal Diseases

Common esophageal diseases include gastroesophageal reflux disease, esophageal cancer, and achalasia of the cardia. The main clinical manifestations are difficulty swallowing, retrosternal burning and esophageal reflux.

II. Gastric and Duodenal Diseases

Common gastric and duodenal diseases include gastritis, peptic ulcer, gastric cancer, and duodenitis. Main symptoms are upper abdominal discomfort and pain, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, belching and acid regurgitation.

III. Small-Intestine Diseases

Common small-intestine diseases include enteritis (including viral enteritis), intestinal tuberculosis, acute hemorrhagic necrotizing enteritis, Crohn's disease, and malabsorption syndrome. Main manifestations are periumbilical pain, abdominal distension and diarrhea; the stool is pasty or watery, and when digestion or absorption is impaired it contains incompletely digested food components, which may be accompanied by systemic nutritional deficiency.

IV. Colonic Diseases

Common colonic diseases include dysentery and various colitides, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, colon cancer and rectal cancer. Main symptoms are pain on one or both sides of the lower abdomen, diarrhea or constipation, and mucous, bloody or purulent stool; when the rectum is involved there is tenesmus.

V. Hepatic Diseases

Common hepatic diseases include viral hepatitis, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, alcoholic liver disease, autoimmune liver disease, genetic liver disease, drug-induced liver disease, liver abscess, cirrhosis of various causes, and primary and secondary liver cancer. Main clinical manifestations are right upper quadrant discomfort or pain and fatigue; signs include hepatomegaly, liver tenderness, jaundice, portal hypertension and nutritional/metabolic disturbance.

VI. Biliary Diseases

Common biliary diseases include gallstones, cholecystitis, cholangitis and biliary ascariasis. Main clinical manifestations are right upper quadrant pain (biliary colic) and jaundice.

VII. Pancreatic Diseases

Common pancreatic diseases include acute pancreatitis, chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. Main clinical manifestations are upper abdominal pain (which may radiate to the back) and small-intestinal malabsorption and metabolic disturbance caused by pancreatic secretory dysfunction.

VIII. Peritoneal and Mesenteric Diseases

Common peritoneal and mesenteric diseases include acute peritonitis, chronic peritonitis, mesenteric lymph node tuberculosis, and peritoneal metastatic cancer. Peritoneal disease mainly manifests as abdominal pain and tenderness, abdominal resistance and ascites.