According to reports seven million people suffer from acid reflux disease. It’s a condition that causes stomach acid to work its way up to the esophagus creating a burning sensation. When this problem occurs more than once a week and interferes with sleeping or daily life doctors refer to it as GERD or gastroesophageal reflux disease.
To treat this condition doctors have prescribed medications such as Nexium, or in some cases recommend surgery. A recent study looked into which treatment was better. The results surprised doctors.
“There was no real difference between the prescription drugs and surgical approaches in terms of their overall ability to ease GERD,” said lead researcher Dr. Jean-Paul Galmiche, a professor of gastroenterology in the College of Medicine at Nantes University in France. “These results were not expected.”
The maker’s of Nexium, AstraZeneca, funded this study. While each treatment came with its ups and downs, doctors believe treatment will now be up to patients. Surgery offers a quick fix, but comes with surgical risks, whereas, medications are effective but have to be taken every day for life.
According to the study, five years after initiating treatment researchers found that GERD was in remission for 85 percent of the patients who had undergone surgery and 92 percent of the patients who were taking Nexium.
Galmiche says GERD therapy becomes a personal choice. “If you are taking one pill once a day, most people tend to want to do that rather than undergo surgery,” he said. “However, it is those who do well on medications that typically do well after surgery.”
About the study
Of the 554 people selected into the trial, 372 completed five years of follow-up, including 192 randomly assigned to treatment with Nexium and 180 assigned to laparoscopic surgery.
In terms of complications, 11 percent of the surgery patients had difficulty swallowing, compared with 5 percent of those taking Nexium. Among those having surgery, more suffered bloating than those taking Nexium (40 percent versus 28 percent) and the same held for rates of (excess) flatulence (57 percent versus 40 percent), the researchers found.
We specialize in providing our over 1,000,000 customers with relevant product and condition information created by our professional editorial staff which includes our team of medical writers, medical practitioners, and health educators. eDrugStore.com Staff on Facebook