Kim Kardashian’s new health scare: What is esophagitis?

Kim Kardashian revealed in the trailer for Season 8 of “The Kardashians” that she’s facing a new health condition. “I have something called esophagitis,” Kardashian says in one clip from the trailer, released Thursday. In another clip, Kris Jenner, Kardashian’s mother, says the diagnosis “makes me want to cry.” According to the Mayo Clinic, esophagitis is inflammation of the tissue lining the esophagus, the muscular tube that carries food and drink from the mouth to the stomach. Later in the trailer, Kardashian is shown lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines, while someone off camera asks whether that is what her father, Robert Kardashian, died of. Robert Kardashian died of esophageal cancer in 2003, at age 59. Dr. Stuart Spechler, a gastroenterologist at Baylor University Medical Center and a member of the American Gastroenterological Association, said that there are many types of esophagitis and that Kardashian did not specify which type she has. “Far and away the most common form is reflux esophagitis, which is a complication of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD),” he said. In those patients, Spechler explained, the mechanisms that normally keep stomach acid from moving back up the esophagus are defective, allowing refluxed acid to irritate and damage the esophagus. Common symptoms include heartburn and regurgitation. Some patients with reflux esophagitis go on to develop Barrett’s esophagus, a condition in which chronic acid exposure damages the esophagus’s normal lining and causes it to be replaced by cells resembling those found in the intestine and stomach, Spechler said. “It is a risk factor for developing a type of esophageal cancer called esophageal adenocarcinoma,” he said of Barrett’s esophagus. Still, Spechler noted that esophagitis is only a small risk factor for esophageal cancer and that women are less likely than men to develop both Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal cancer. “Most patients who have GERD and reflux esophagitis do not have Barrett’s esophagus, and most patients with Barrett’s esophagus do not develop cancer,” Spechler said. Both conditions are diagnosed using endoscopy, a procedure that lets doctors examine the esophagus and take biopsies to check for abnormalities. Patients with Barrett’s esophagus typically undergo regular endoscopies, Spechler said, “to identify early changes that indicate higher risk for developing cancer.” In 2019, the Kardashian family helped open the Robert G. Kardashian Center for Esophageal Health at UCLA, established as “a center for holistic, patient-centered treatment, research and education related to disorders of the esophagus,” according to a news release. The family said at the time that it planned to launch fundraising efforts to support the center’s key initiatives. “Our family is proud to pay tribute to our father by partnering with UCLA Health to establish the Robert G. Kardashian Center for Esophageal Health,” Kardashian said, according to the 2019 release. “We look forward to working with our longtime family friend, Dr. Eric Esrailian, the Melvin and Bren Simon Digestive Diseases Center, and the UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases to build the best program of its kind in the country.” She added: “We hope to save lives and help the community for many years to come in honor of our father.”