A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease Therapy.

GERD and asthma likely co-exist, and may be pathogenetically linked. However, it is controversial whether GERD per se is an important risk factor for severe asthma, and whether treatment of GERD and/or GERD symptoms improves asthma control. In addition, there are no published data on how often asthmatics are treated with the anti-secretory agents proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) for GERD. However, a preliminary survey from the American Lung Association's Asthma Clinical Research Centers consortium show diverse practice patterns among clinics with about 15% of children and 20% - 30% of adults being prescribed medical treatment (unpublished data). The NIH Expert Panel on The Diagnosis and Management of Asthma, recommends that "…for patients with poorly controlled asthma, particularly with a nocturnal component, investigation for gastroesophageal reflux may be warranted even in the absence of suggestive symptoms". The American Thoracic Society (ATS) workshop on severe refractory asthma, concluded that GERD "…could contribute to the severity" of asthma and recommended that all patients with severe refractory asthma undergo esophageal pH probe monitoring to evaluate for the presence of GERD". Noticeably absent in both of these "expert panel" documents were randomized placebo controlled trial data in all populations, and properly designed clinical trial information in the pediatric population with clear case and control definitions of GERD and asthma. The American Gastroenterological Association recommends ambulatory pH probe monitoring in adult patients with reflux-triggered asthma; but, to date has developed no recommendations for children 20. While these are reasonable recommendations, there is no convincing evidence that GERD is more common in patients with severe asthma than mild asthma, or that treatment of reflux can decrease asthma severity. PPIs, the most effective treatment for GERD (i.e., resolve both symptoms and mucosal disease), have a retail cost between $100 and $153 per month. However, recent hospital data demonstrates that anti-reflux surgery is being performed at an increasing rate in children with respiratory manifestations of their GERD at a sizeable cost and with no long term outcome studies to date. Thus, it can be estimated that the cost for diagnosing and treating GERD in symptomatic asthmatics ranges from $1 to $8 billion dollars per year if all poorly controlled asthmatics were both investigated and treated. Therefore, randomized controlled clinical trials are critically needed to reduce overall healthcare costs and the public health burden of these two chronic conditions.