This a a specific method for diagnosing reflux disease in otorhynolaryngology and pulmology, i.e. so-called laryngo-pharyngeal reflux.
It is performed by application of a catheter with two sensors, which measure the ph values in throat and pharynx.
Differently from the classic pH-metry used by gastroenterologists and abdominal surgeons, here the upper sensor is placed in the throat and not in the esophagus. This is very important, because in classic pH-metry it may happen that you are declared healthy although you are not, because other criteria are used for ENT region and lungs.
It even happens that a patient with distinct problems in the ENT region is declared physically healthy and sent to a psychiatrist, for allegedly he “imagines” his problems, all because the measurement is done only in the esophagus!
24h pharyngo-esophageal pH-metry is the “golden” standard for diagnosing reflux disease and enables your physician to detect many things in connection with your health.
Interpretation of the findings from 24h pharyngo-esophageal pH-metry should not be left only to software programs and defined scores, on the contrary, each patient has to be analized individually. For instance, a patient may have a normal number of reflux episodes, but if they do correlate with his problems at the moment of recording, we certainly cannot say he is healthy.
Even if it is very likely that a patient has reflux disease, this has to be proved by 24h pharyngo-esophageal pH-metry, especially in ENT or pulmonary patients, because the treatment of laryngo-pharyngeal reflux (reflux connected to ENT or pulmonary disease) differs from the treatment performed by gastroenterologists, regarding the doses of medicine given as well as regarding the duration of treatment.
To resume: in this way it is possible to determine whether reflux disease is the cause of patient’s problems in ENT region or lungs (for instance asthma-induced reflux) or not. On the pH recording the physician can see how serious the disease is, when it is at its worst, by day or by night, whether it is provoked by effort or position of the body, whether it is the result of a continuously opened esophagus or of some functional problem, of the patient’s food effecting the findings etc.
In this way it is also possible to find out if the patient has a so-called non-acid reflux, which gives almost the same symptoms as acid reflux, but does not react to the therapy prescribed for acid reflux.
The recording takes 24 hours. A very thin catheter is used, which is passed through the nose and placed on a certain level. The patient wears a monitor around the waist, which is connected to the catheter. This method is entirely painless and is used in exactly the same way for children. As soon as the catheter is placed, the patient can go home and live normally 24 hours. When the recording is completed, patient returns to our clinic, where the catheter is removed and further analyses are performed. Patient is free to go home until we call him to come to get the results.
The method using a capsule placed in the esophagus cannot be applied for patients with an ENT or pulmonal disease, for as is explained above, this measures only the findings in the esophagus.