SEW AWAY HEARTBURN #1474
Television News Service/Medical Breakthroughs
©Ivanhoe Broadcast News, Inc. September 1999
http://www.ivanhoe.com/stream/sewawayheartburn.html
Its medical name is gastroesophageal reflux disease, although most of
us call it heartburn. Ten percent of Americans suffer from it every day.
Until now, an operation or a lifetime of medicine were the only
treatment options. A new, non-surgical treatment offers instant relief.
Deb Nickels is the first volunteer at the Mayo Clinic to test a new
treatment for reflux disease, more commonly called heartburn. "From the
moment it was done, the reflux was gone. It was instantaneously gone,"
she says.
With reflux, partially digested food travels upward into the throat
because muscles here are loose and weak.
Christopher Gostout, M.D., a gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic in
Rochester, Minn., says, "We're looking at a method of tightening up that
weak area."
Dr. Gostout sedates patients and looks way down their throats for the
loose muscles. Then he makes them tighter with a device that acts like a
tiny sewing machine.
"It's a little capsule that fits at the end of our flexible endoscope,
and it has a needle in there. When the stomach wall is drawn into the
capsule, a straight needle comes down and drops a stitch through,"
explains Dr. Gostout.
Deb went home to her son, Jade, the same day. The next week, she was off
to Mexico.
"So that was a real test -- margaritas and spicy tacos and all of that
stuff," says Deb. She says with all that she only had one episode.
Doctors don't know yet how long the stitches will last. For Deb, it's
been six months and so far, so good.
Dr. Gostout says treatment with the endoscopic sewing machine is
appropriate for people who have heartburn at least several times a week.
Right now it's only available through clinical trials.
If you would like more information , please contact:
Mayo Clinic Cancer Center
200 First Street SW
Rochester, MN 55905
(507) 284-2511
--
Judith Richards, London, Ontario, Canada
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