[Prevalence of erosive esophagitis in patients with subtotal gastrectomy: case-control study]

Enterogastric bile reflux has been implicated as a definite causative factor for the development of postoperative bile reflux gastritis. However, little is known about the role of bile reflux into the stomach in gastro-esophageal reflux disease in patients with subtotal gastrectomy. In this study, we tried to prove that the bile reflux gastritis does increase the development of erosive esophagitis in patients who underwent subtotal gastrectomy.

From January 1997 to December 2001, 222 patients with previous subtotal gastrectomy were enrolled. We also reviewed the endoscopic findings in 1,633 age and sex-matched healthy controls who had visited our hospital for routine check-up without significant gastrointestinal symptoms.

The prevalence of erosive esophagitis is 5% (LA A 2.7%, LA B 2.3%) in gastrectomized patients and 4.9% (LA A 3.2%, LA B 1.7%, LA C 0.0%) in healthy controls. There was no significant difference in the prevalence and the degree of esophagitis between the two groups.

These results suggest that subtotal gastrectomy may not be a risk factor for developing the erosive reflux esophagitis.