TOAST Study is open to recruitment!
Published on Monday, 23 March 2026
We are very pleased to share that TOAST Study is now open to recruitment! Our first recruiting site, Southampton Children's Hospital, was given the green light on 03/03/2026, with more sites to follow shortly. We are aiming to open 12-15 specialist UK neonatal surgical units, and recruit 211 babies born with oesophageal atresia (OA) over a 5-year period.
OA is a rare condition, affecting around 150 babies every year in the UK, where babies are born without an intact oesophagus (swallowing tube). The condition requires urgent lifesaving surgery in the first days of life to enable the baby to feed. The surgery is usually successful but babies often go on to develop a 'stricture', - a narrowing of the rebuilt region of the oesophagus - which requires a mechanical stretching procedure called a 'dilatation' under general anaesthetic to resolve. OA babies can develop multiple strictures during their first year of life, which has cost implications for the NHS, as well as placing additional burden on the baby and their family.
Some clinicians believe that acid reflux from the stomach may increase the chances of these strictures developing, so they prescribe antacid medication post-surgery as a preventative measure. Not all clinicians prescribe this medication post-surgery for OA, and it is currently unclear whether it is beneficial to do so.
The Treating Oesophageal Atresia to prevent Stricture Study aims to answer the question:
'Should all babies born with oesophageal atresia be treated routinely with antacid medication to reduce strictures?'
In this double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled study, 211 babies who undergo surgical repair for OA will be allocated to either receive antacid medication or placebo daily post-surgery until they are 12-months old. The baby's family and all clinical staff will be blinded to this allocation. The primary outcome of TOAST Study is to determine the severity of stricture (defined as the number of dilatations performed) during the first year of life.
For more information, please see the Trial Overview Video for TOAST Study.
If you are interested in becoming a recruiting site for TOAST Study, please contact the TOAST Study Team at NPEU CTU.
