The Efficacy of Proximal Esophageal 24-hour pH Monitoring in Infants with Chronic Cough

PURPOSE: Gastroesophageal reflux disease(GERD) is known as one of the most common causes of chronic cough, especially in children. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of parameters from proximal esophageal 24-hr pH monitoring through its comparison with those of distal esophageal 24-hr pH monitoring that we generally use for diagnosis of GERD. METHODS: We performed chest CT scans to find out the cause of chronic cough in infants with no clinical manifestation suggesting GERD. Then, in case that they had air space consolidation in posterior segment of both upper lobes and superior segment of both lower lobes(dependent position), we performed proximal and distal esophageal 24-hr pH monitoring. RESULTS: The proximal and distal pH monitoring were performed in 17 infants(male 12; female five). The patients with positive pathologic reflux in proximal esophagus were 15 of 17(88.2%) and in distal esophagus were four of 17(23.5%). Reflux index and the total number of reflux episodes were statistically significantly lower in the proximal than in the distal esophagus(P<0.05). There was no correlation between each parameters of proximal and distal esophageal 24-hr pH monitoring. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that proximal esophageal 24-hr pH monitoring can be used as a very useful diagnostic tool in infants with chronic cough in which there are suspicions that it resulted from aspiration due to GERD.

Transoral endoscopic suturing for gastroesophageal reflux diseases / 中国微创外科杂志

Objective To evaluate the short-term effects and complications of transoral endoscopic suturing in the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux diseases (GERD). Methods Sixteen patients with GERD, confirmed by gastroscopy, upper gastrointestinal barium meal examination, and esophageal pH value examination, received gastroesophageal suturing by using an endoscopic suturing device (manufactured by Bard Co.). The site of suturing was 1cm below the dentation line, with a suture interval of 1.5cm and a knot interval of 2.0cm. Symptom severity scoring, esophageal 24-hour pH monitoring and the degree of esophagitis before and 1 month after the operation were compared respectively. Results A total of 42 sutures and 21 knots were made in the 16 cases. The mean operation time was 30 min. The sum of heartburn scores and regurgitation scores before the treatment were 39 (mean, 2.44) and 32 (mean, 2.0), and those after the treatment were 11 (mean, 0.68) and 10 (mean, 0.63), respectively, with statistical significances between preoperation and postoperation ( ? 2 =19.5 and 16.33; P