A Non-Invasive Technique for Long-Term Monitoring of Gastroesophageal Reflux—A Pilot Study

Abstract

Many people suffer from gastric or gastroesophageal reflux disorder (GERD) due to a malfunction of the cardia, the valve between the esophagus and the stomach. GERD is a syndrome caused by the ascent of gastric juices and bile from the stomach. This article proposes a non-invasive impedance measurement method and demonstrates the correlation between GERD and impedance variation between appropriately chosen points on the patient’s chest. This method is presented as an alternative to the most widely accepted diagnostic techniques for reflux, such as pH-metry, pH-impedance measurement, and esophageal manometry, which are invasive because they use a probe that is inserted through a nostril and reaches down to the esophagus.

Keywords

• gastroesophageal reflux
• bio-impedance measurement
• biomedical measurement