Assessment of effectiveness of different dosage regimens of pantoprazole in controlling symptoms and healing esophageal lesions of patients with mild erosive esophagitis

BACKGROUND: Gastroesophageal reflux disease is a very common affection, and esophageal involvement is particularly frequent. The means to effectively control symptoms and improve esophageal inflammation in these patients is to reduce esophageal acid exposure. For this purpose, we use gastric proton pump inhibitor, that can suppress gastric acid secretion. AIM: To compare the effectiveness of two different pantoprazole dosage regimens (20 and 40 mg/day), in controlling symptoms and healing esophageal lesions of patients with mild erosive esophagitis. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Fifty-seven patients with endoscopically confirmed mild erosive esophagitis characterized as non-confluent erosions in the distal esophagus, were randomly to be treated either with pantoprazole 20 mg/day (group I, 28 patients) or 40 mg/day (group II, 29 patients) over a period of 4 weeks. After treatment completion, the patients were assessed for clinical and endoscopic outcome, i.e., absence of erosions in distal esophagus and improvement of gastroesophageal reflux symptoms. RESULTS: At the end of the treatment, 73.1% of the patients in group I and 85.7% of the patients in group II had endoscopic improvement. We also observed, that 88.5% of the patients in group I and 92.9% of the patients in group II had complete elimination of heartburn and regurgitation. CONCLUSION: Pantoprazole dosage regimens of 20 mg/day and 40 mg/day provide equivalent effectiveness in controlling symptoms and healing esophageal lesions of mild esophagitis.