[Rapidity of pain relief, medication requirement and patient satisfaction with reflux treatment in the physician's office].

Treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) with proton pump inhibitors was investigated in three controlled prospective, randomized open studies. Lansoprazole, omeprazole MUPS and esomeprazole were compared under doctor's office conditions. The outcomes of interest were the rapidity of pain relief achieved with a single dose, effectiveness and patient satisfaction with on demand therapy. In the first study, 180 patients with chronic and prolonged episodes of reflux were investigated. Time to pain relief following a single dose was 1.1 +/- 0.8 hours with 30 mg lansoprazole, 3.0 +/- 2.5 hours with 20 mgomeprazole MUPS and 2.1 +/- 1.2 hours with 40 mg esomeprazole. Studies 2 and 3 were designed as cross-over studies intended to investigate drug consumption. In study 2, the amount of lansoprazole consumed was approximately 50% less than that of omeprazole, and this translated to 81% patient satisfaction with lansoprazole compared with only 9.5% for omeprazole. In study 3 comparing lansoprazole and esomeprazole, consumption of the former was 85% that of the latter. 58% of the patients opted to continuetreatment with lansoprazole, compared with only 25% in the case of esomeprazole. The appreciably greater patient satisfaction with lansoprazole was due tothe faster pain relief achieved with this drug.