DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT IN GASTROESOPHAGEAL REFLUX DISEASE – POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS

In children’s first year of life it is mandatory to make a difference between physiological gastroesophageal reflux (GER) and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), in order to avoid an aggressive pharmacologic therapy. All ages of childhood benefit from modern criteria of clinical evaluation, by corroborating the digestive or extradigestive symptoms with the results of modern investigations. The dietary measures (sufficient in GER but mandatory in all cases) together with proton pump inhibitors administration after one year of age induce remission in majority of GER cases. The chronic and recurrent evolution of the disease or failure of the common treatment require surgical intervention, recently enriched in children with peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM)