FRIDAY, Oct. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Acid suppression treatment has little or no efficacy for treating gastroesophageal reflux in infants, according to research presented Oct. 19 at the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition in Orlando, Fla.
Ajay Kaul, M.D., of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio, and colleagues reviewed pH-impedance data in 30 infants suspected of having gastroesophageal reflux disease. During the study, 15 infants were fed through nasogastric tubes (continuous feeds) and 15 were fed orally during overnight stays with 20 hours of continuous data collection. Thirteen infants were on a proton pump inhibitor and nine were on H2-blockers. Eight were on no acid suppression agents.
Orally fed infants on acid suppression showed a trend toward more gastroesophageal reflux events than infants who were not, and infants on proton pump inhibitors showed a trend toward less acid reflux episodes than infants on H2-blockers. Continuously fed infants had significantly fewer gastroesophageal reflux episodes than orally fed subjects, however, despite continuous nasogastric feeds and acid suppression, the proportion of acid reflux episodes remained essentially unchanged. Those treated with either kind of acid suppression had significantly fewer gastroesophageal reflux episodes, although infants treated with H2-blockers had a higher proportion of acid reflux episodes than proton pump inhibitor treated infants.
"At the currently prescribed dosing regimen, our pilot data suggests that H2-blockers have poor efficacy while proton pump inhibitors have borderline efficacy in the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease in infants," the authors conclude.
Abstract (#9)
