The incidence of acid reflux disease is on the rise worldwide. Doctors cite many concomitant or single contributing factors. Lifestyle, food choices, food processing, pollution and so on.
But the truth of the matter is that as many as one fifth of the American population, and in similar quantities worldwide, are suffering from the ailment, either chronically or occasionally.
And for those individuals who are chronic sufferers, there is no other alternative than taking medication that could be damaging to the health of the patient in the long term, or at least cause nutritional deficiencies or other disruptions of gastric functions.
What is worse is that the medications taken to stop Gerd do not cure the ailment, but are just a temporary treatment which must remain in place for an indefinite period of time.
Medical researchers are now trying to find new, permanent ways to cure the ailment , and indications are that the recent surgical offerings might be a viable solution.
One of the experimental surgeries that is showing promise is a minimally invasive procedure in which a series of small magnets placed around the esophageal sphincter prevents the esophagus from enlarging and allowing the acid from refluxing upward, thereby stopping both the symptoms and the inflammation caused by the condition.
The device is described as a titanium ring that is expandable enough to allow food to pass, but keeps the sphincter closed when not eating.
The surgery appears to have been very successful even after three years after its preliminary adoption, and the patients who have undergone the procedure have also been able to stop taking the medications on which they were dependant for a number of years.
The surgery however, was not successful in all patients. Some had to have the device removed because they were not able to tolerate it, and some reported that the device caused them to be unable to swallow or that it caused them to vomit.
In fact, a third of the patients who opted for the procedure reported having problems swallowing, but the hardship subsided slowly over time.
A few hundreds of the device have already been implanted so far. But the surgery is not a solution for everyone. People who have a large hiatal hernia or were obese were ineligible for the surgery. In addition, the effectiveness of the procedure cannot be measured against any other surgical alternative, since there are no other surgical procedures currently that are comparable to the implantation of the device.
The only other surgical procedure, fundoplication, in which the esophageal sphincter is surgically brought back to a normal size, is much more invasive and has had significant side effects in the past.
Source: Science News. 2.26.13
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