He led the Dartmouth team that performed the procedure in almost a quarter of the patients in a national clinical trial to test the safety and efficacy of the patented endoscope device. Overall, about two thirds of the patients are doing well, some now two years after the procedure, he reports. The trial has been completed, and the device has earned FDA approval, so the new therapy will soon be available on a wider scale. No general anesthesia is required for the 45-minute procedure. We tie the knots outside the patient and then push them back down.
Patients go home the same day and can eat anything they want, some for the first time in years.
Most no longer need antacids or daily acid blockers, he adds. Since doing the first American case in March 1998 at DHMC, Rothstein was also the first to treat patients using the technique in Paris and in Lisbon, where he was recently invited to lecture and demonstrate his expertise. Instead of stitching, he applies microwave energy delivered via a catheter to thicken the esophageal sphincter. This technique, too, is an outpatient procedure done in less than an hour, and early results are similarly successful to the sewing data, Rothstein says.