Abstract
The high prevalence of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) in the Western societies has accelerated the need for new modalities of treatment. Currently, medical and surgical therapies are widely accepted among patients and physicians. New potent antisecretory drugs and the development of minimally invasive surgery for the management of reflux are at present the pivotal and largely accepted approaches to treatment The minimally invasive treatment revolution, however, has stimulated several new endoscopic techniques. At present, the data is limited and further studies are necessary to compare the advantages and disadvantages of the various endoscopic techniques to medical and laparoscopic management of GERD. Further trials and device refinements will assist clinicians. In this article, we present an overview of the various techniques that are currently in practice and under study. We report the efficiency and durability of various endoscopic therapies for GERD. The potential for widespread use of these techniques will also be discussed. Articles and abstracts published in English on this topic were retrieved from Pubmed. Due to limited number of studies and various trials, strict criteria were not used for the pooled data presented, however, an effort was made to avoid bias by including only studies that used off-PPI scoring as baseline and intent to treat.