Endoscopic therapy for gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Within the last 15 years, novel endoscopic therapies have been developed as options for patients who have gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). These approaches can provide long-term relief of GERD, or can be used to "bridge" patients to future therapy, because undergoing treatment does not preclude one from future medical or surgical therapy. These therapies continue to bean active source of research and investigation. Although they are undergoing rapid development, there are only a few peer-reviewed articles detailing original studies with short-term follow-up. Future success in this arena will depend on sham-controlled trials, long-term outcome studies, and cost-effectiveness analyses. This article describes available endoscopic therapies, discusses their effectiveness and duration of response, and reviews their failures and complications.