Quality of Life after Laparoscopic Fundoplication for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. Preliminary Study

  1. Home
  2. Articles

Quality of Life after Laparoscopic Fundoplication for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. Preliminary Study

A.E. Nicolau, M. Crăciun, R. Zota, A. Kitkani
Original article, no. 6, 2013
Laparoscopic fundoplication (LF) is the treatment of choice forgastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).Our paper evaluatespost LF quality of life (QL). Patients treated between January2008 and May 2011 by the same surgeon were asked to fill inthe Velanovich questionnaires for Gastro - Oesophageal RefluxDisease - Health Related Quality of Life (GERD-HRQL). The10 questions were designed to assess GERD specific symptomsprior to (part A) and after surgery (part B). The Velanovichscore is 0 if the patient is asymptomatic and 50 if thesymptoms are at maximum intensity. Only 32 out of the 54patients operated during the study filled in the questionnaire:28 patients (87.5%) had hiatus hernia (HH), 16 cases wereassociated with reflux erosive esophagitis (EE), 4 patients hadnon-erosive reflux disease (NERD) and one had Barrett’sesophagus (BE). We used Toupet partial posterior fundoplicationfor 12 patients and Nissen total fundoplication for 20patients. The short gastric vessels were divided in all patients.The female - male ratio was 21:11 with a mean age of 55.13 years and the mean follow up period for questionnaire B was of25.2 months. The Velanovich A score was 29.9 Â+-10.9, and thefollow up B score was 3.4Â+-2.4 (CI (95%) 22.9-39.9; p 0.05).There were no B score statistical differences between sex ratio(3.9 vs 2.4) and type of fundoplication (Nissen 3.2 vs Toupet4.1). 29 patients (90.62%) declared that their QL improvedafter surgery. The main indication for surgery present in almostevery patient included in this study was the presence of theHH and RE. LF improved the quality of life of patients withGERD. There were no statistical differences of the Velanovichscore according to GERD stage (EE, NERD with or withoutHH), sex ratio and type of LF, Toupet or Nissen.