Healing Heartburn

NASHVILLE (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- If you suffer from heartburn regularly, you may be one of more than 15 million Americans who has the condition gastroesophageal reflux disease can sometimes be a precursor to esophageal cancer. Now, there's a non-surgical alternative.

Darlene Van Hoos has always enjoyed spicy foods. What she didn't like were the after effects. "I would have coughing spasms because of the acid coming up into my throat," she says. "Just a general miserable feeling."

Darlene has gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD. She didn't want to take medication indefinitely, so she jumped at the chance to be in a study on this -- the Plicator.

A guide wire helps doctors move this snake-like device through the esophagus into the stomach. The Plicator pulls back tissue where the stomach and esophagus meet. Jaws clamp down and deploy an implant that sutures the tissue.

Doctors tighten the valve between the stomach and esophagus, restoring the normal anti-reflux barrier. The procedure replicates what's done in surgery.

Alfonso Torquati, M.D., an abdominal surgeon at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, says, "Definitely, something different from surgery where people stay in the hospital at least one night and have a longer recovery time compared to endoscopic procedure where people can go back to work the day after."

Because it's done in a 30-minute outpatient procedure, he thinks patients will welcome the idea. "Some of these patients, they don't want to consider surgery because they think it's too extreme. Now, finally, there is a treatment for them that is available."

Darlene has noticed a big difference. Now she can experience the pleasure of eating without the pain of heartburn.

The FDA has approved the Plicator, and it's now available for heartburn sufferers. One hundred eighty patients in the United States and Europe are in this international study, which aims to prove the Plicator's effectiveness so that more insurance carriers will cover the procedure.

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

If you would like more information, please contact:

John Howser
News and Public Affairs
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
CCC - 3321, MCN Vander
Nashville, TN 87232
(615) 322-4747
john.howser@vanderbilt.edu