Surgery for GERD can improve both GERD and GERD-related illnesses:

• Asthma
• Barrett’s Esophagus
• Hiatal Hernia
• GERD in Infants and Children

Asthma is a serious medical condition. When an asthma attack occurs, the airways narrow, making it difficult to breathe for the person suffering an attack. Surgery for GERD has been shown to reduce the severity and frequency of asthma attacks in GERD patients.

• Aggressive antireflux therapy resulted in improvement of asthma attacks for 70 to 80 percent of GERD patients.²
• Antireflux surgery improved respiratory symptoms in 70 percent of adults with asthma and GERD.⁵
• Antireflux surgery has been shown to be superior to medication in improving asthma in GERD patients.⁵

Barrett’s esophagus is a serious medical condition. It is a precancerous condition that can lead to esophageal cancer. The frequency of esophageal cancer is growing more quickly than that of any other cancer in the U.S. and the five-year survival rate of this cancer is very low.⁴ Therefore, it is very important to monitor patients diagnosed with Barrett’s esophagus.

For many years, the medical community widely assumed that once Barrett’s esophagus was established it did not change. However, recent findings published in several articles indicate that this assumption is not true.

• One-third of patients with visible segments of Barrett’s esophagus who had antireflux surgery experienced regression of their Barrett’s esophagus.³
• Minimally invasive antireflux surgery was effective in controlling symptoms in the majority of patients with Barrett’s esophagus.⁶
• Several factors suggest that surgical management of Barrett’s esophagus may be preferable to long-term acid-suppression therapy.⁸
• Effective antireflux surgery may induce complete or partial regression of Barrett’s epithelium.⁸
• Antireflux surgery provides excellent long-lasting relief of symptoms in patients with Barrett’s esophagus.⁸

Hiatal hernia can be a painful medical condition. Antireflux surgery is the only available treatment that reliably increases lower esophageal sphincter pressures and length, decreases the frequency of lower esophageal sphincter relaxations, and corrects the hiatal hernia.⁷

Many parents opt to treat their children’s GERD with surgery. There are several reasons for this:

• They prefer not to deal with daily medications and their side effects.
• Respiratory symptoms linked to GERD, such as asthma, are often improved with antireflux surgery.²
• GERD can lead to Barrett’s esophagus, a precancerous condition.
• Antireflux surgery improves respiratory symptoms in nearly 90 percent of pediatric patients with GERD and asthma.⁵
• Minimally invasive antireflux surgery has been performed safely in infants and children with the same expected advantages as those seen in adult patients. The recovery period is quicker than open surgery.⁹