1. Response to Ribolsi and Cicala
- Author
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A. J. P. M. Smout, Pim W. Weijenborg, Boudewijn F. Kessing, and Albert J. Bredenoord
- Subjects
Proximal esophagus ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Pathology ,Future studies ,Esophageal mucosa ,Hepatology ,Esophageal wall ,business.industry ,viruses ,Gastroenterology ,Reflux ,complex mixtures ,Functional integrity ,fluids and secretions ,Internal medicine ,mental disorders ,Medicine ,Baseline impedance ,business - Abstract
To the Editor: We would like to thank the author (1) for their interest in our work (2). We agree with the authors that the data regarding the correlation between baseline impedance levels and microscopic changes, such as dilated intercellular spaces (DIS), is contradictory. We observed that baseline impedance levels show a strong correlation with esophageal acid exposure and proposed that this is associated with DIS. Farre et al. (3) also suggested that low baseline impedance levels are associated with DIS. However, DIS can also be observed in the absence of increased esophageal acid exposure (3,4). Furthermore, DIS is observed in the proximal esophagus of patients with non-erosive reflux disease (5), but in our patients, baseline impedance levels in the proximal esophagus were not different from those in controls. Therefore, future studies need to address the relation between DIS, baseline impedance levels, and functional changes to the esophageal wall.
- Published
- 2012
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