Intragastric acidity during treatment with esomeprazole 40 mg twice daily or pantoprazole 40 mg twice daily--a randomized, two-way crossover study

BACKGROUND: Patients with severe or complicated reflux disease may require higher than standard doses of a proton pump inhibitor for sufficient acid suppression.

AIM: To test the hypothesis that esomeprazole 40 mg twice daily is superior to pantoprazole 40 mg twice daily in lowering intragastric acidity.

METHODS: In a randomized, single-blinded, two-way crossover study, healthy subjects received esomeprazole 40 mg twice daily or pantoprazole 40 mg twice daily orally for five consecutive days. Continuous ambulatory 24-h intragastric pH was recorded on day 5 of each treatment.

RESULTS: Thirty subjects were analysed. Esomeprazole provided significantly higher intragastric pH-values over the 24-h period [median intragastric pH 6.4 for esomeprazole and 5.1 for pantoprazole (P < 0.00005)]. Intragastric pH > 4 was maintained for 21.1 h with esomeprazole and 16.8 h with pantoprazole (P < 0.0001). An intragastric pH > 4 for more than 16 h was achieved in 96.7 and 56.7% of subjects, respectively (P = 0.0002). During night-time the proportion of time with intragastric pH > 4 was 85.4% with esomeprazole and 63.6% with pantoprazole (P = 0.0001). Nocturnal acid break through occurred less frequently on esomeprazole.

CONCLUSIONS: Esomeprazole 40 mg twice daily provides better and more consistent intragastric acid control than pantoprazole 40 mg twice daily.