Management of failure after surgery for gastro-esophageal reflux disease

Surgical treatment of gastro-esophageal reflux disease (ST-GERD) is well-codified and offers an alternative to long-term medical treatment with a better efficacy for short and long-term outcomes. However, failure of ST-GERD is observed in 2-20% of patients; management is challenging and not standardized. The aim of this study is to analyze the causes of failure and to provide a treatment algorithm. The clinical aspects of ST-GERD failure are variable including persistent reflux, dysphagia or permanent discomfort leading to an important degradation of the quality of life. A morphological and functional pre-therapeutic evaluation is necessary to: (i) determine whether the symptoms are due to recurrence of reflux or to an error in initial indication and (ii) to understand the cause of the failure. The most frequent causes of failure of ST-GERD include errors in the initial indication, which often only need medical treatment, and surgical technical errors, for which surgical redo surgery can be difficult. Multidisciplinary management is necessary in order to offer the best-adapted treatment.