Patients with erosive esophagitis (EE) account for 30 % of patients with gastroesophageal refl ux disease; only a minority of these patients fail to achieve healing on treatment with a proton pump inhibitor (PPI), once-daily, for 8 weeks. For those patients with EE who have failed to heal on a PPI, given once-daily, current practice is to double the PPI dose although there is little published evidence to support this. In this issue of the American Journal of Gastroenterology , authors from Japan have demonstrated that double-dose PPI produced higher healing rates when given as a split, twicedaily dose than as a once-daily dose for patients with EE who had failed initial therapy with rabeprazole 10 mg once-daily. Quadruple-dose PPI, given as a split dose, did not increase the healing rates but did produce better symptom control, albeit limited, compared with double-dose PPI, given twice-daily. Because subjects, initially, received a lower PPI dose than that generally indicated for EE (rabeprazole 20 mg daily), this study does not provide the eagerly awaited justifi cation for double-dose PPI therapy in patients with EE who have failed standard-dose PPI once-daily. However, it does demonstrate the clinical advantage of a split-dose regimen ( AM and PM ), compared with a once-daily regimen, when doubling the dose of a PPI for patients with residual EE after initial therapy. Am J Gastroenterol 2012; 107:531 -533; doi: 10.1038/ajg.2012 Th e introduction of the proton pump inhibitor (PPI) class of drugs has revolutionized treatment of erosive esophagitis (EE).Patients with EE receiving standard-dose PPI demonstrated 85 -96 % healing rates regardless of PPI brand and disease severity ( 1,2 ). However, despite the success of PPIs in healing EE, several areas of unmet need commonly result in PPI dose adjustments by practicing physicians. Patients with moderateto-severe EE (Los Angeles grades C and D) are less responsive to standard-dose PPI compared with patients with mild EE (Los Angeles grades A and B). One study demonstrated the following failure rates for subjects taking either omeprazole 20 mg once-daily or esomeprazole 40 mg once-daily: 9.6 and 6.6 % for Los Angeles grade A, 28.7 and 10.6 % for grade B, 29.6 and 12.8 % for grade C, and 36.2 and 20 % for grade D, respectively ( 3 ). In addition, the symptom resolution rate for those with EE receiving standard-dose PPI was 10 -15 % lower than the esophageal mucosal healing rate ( 4 ). Th e latter suggests that subjects with EE receiving PPI once-daily may continue to have GERD (gastroesophageal refl ux disease)-related symptoms despite complete esophageal healing. More disconcerting is that 10.2 -28.8 % of subjects with grades A and B and 15.9 -41.2 % with grades C and D experienced relapse within 6 months on maintenance with the same PPI dose (once-daily) that healed their EE initially ( 5 ). Consequently, it has become common practice to double the PPI dose in patients with EE who demonstrate partial or complete lack of response to standard-dose PPI. Howe...