A new diagnostic technique could reveal more quickly if patients who have adult-onset asthma are also suffering from the chronic heartburn that is linked to oesophageal cancer.
Researchers examining the strong association between certain lung conditions, such as adult-onset asthma, and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), used a diagnostic technique that they helped develop to identify patients whose asthma had been induced by GERD.
GERD is a very common condition affecting millions of people. It happens when the muscles at the end of the oesophagus (gullet) don’t close properly, allowing the acid and bile in the stomach to leak out into the gullet. This causes heartburn, stomach pain and excess gas, while some sufferers also experience chest discomfort, difficulty swallowing and regurgitation of food. The chronic heartburn caused by condition is linked to oesophageal cancer.
In patients who are diagnosed with adult-onset asthma, heartburn and acid reflux is a common side effect.
The team from the Institute for the Treatment of Esophageal and Thoracic Disease at the West Penn Allegheny Health System in Pittsburgh put their diagnostic technique, called hypopharyngeal multi-channel intraluminal impedance (HMII), to the test on patients with adult-onset asthma who also had symptoms of GERD.
Their specially designed catheter was used to measure the levels of acid reflux exposure in the patient’s airways – asthma is a chronic condition that causes inflammation of the airways. The study aimed to discover if the catheter could more reliably identify which patients would benefit from surgery to relieve the symptoms of GERD and revealed that the majority of those who had surgery reported that their asthma symptoms eased significantly afterwards.
More research is now planned involving adult asthma patients who do not respond positively to the current medication prescribed for the condition to discover if they also have the symptoms of GERD.
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