Surgery shows promise in treating persistent heartburn
Ring-shaped device around esophagus prevents acid reflux in most patients
By Nathan Seppa
A small ring of magnets cinched around the bottom of the esophagus can prevent acid reflux in many people. Eighty-six of 100 patients with persistent reflux who had the device surgically implanted no longer needed heartburn medications one year later, researchers report in the Feb. 21 New England Journal of Medicine.
“This is very encouraging,” says Peter Kahrilas, a gastroenterologist at the Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago who wasn’t part of the research. He says that for reflux disease, the magnet-laden ring is “the most promising device that has been introduced in a long time, if not ever.”
While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the device for reflux in March 2012, scientists are still monitoring its long-term safety and effectiveness in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD. Chronic GERD can lead to esophageal scarring and a condition marked by abnormal cell growth called Barrett’s esophagus, which increases the risk of an esophageal cancer called adenocarcinoma. In the United States, nearly 18,000 people each year develop some form of esophageal cancer.
Medicines to treat GERD aim to neutralize acid in the stomach or limit its production. But they don’t address the anatomical problem at the core of acid reflux: the defective sphincter valve between the esophagus and the stomach that allows some of the stomach’s acidic digestive juices to backflow into the esophagus.