1Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, SMS Medical College, Jaipur
2Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, SMS Medical College, Jaipur
3Professor and Head, Department of Gastroenterology, SMS Medical College, Jaipur
*Corresponding author: Dr. Vidhyadhar S. Nitar Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, SMS Medical College, Jaipur
Online published on 16 August, 2018.
Dysphagia means subjective sensation of difficulty in swallowing. Diagnosis of dysphagia is important due to associated mortality and morbidity. Upper gastro-intestinal endoscopy is an effective tool for the diagnostic evaluation and management of patients with dysphagia. The aim of current study was to determine the frequency of common endoscopic findings in patients with esophageal dysphagia and whether finding differ according to age, sex and duration of dysphagia.
It was a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data over 2 years. Patients with previous endoscopic evaluation, failed endoscopy or had history of upper gastrointestinal pathology were excluded from the study. Data was analyzed to see the pattern of abnormal findings in upper gastrointestinal tract and there relation with age, sex and duration of dysphagia.
A total of 502 patients with dysphagia (mean age 48.56 ± 16.41 years, M: F 1.4: 1) were analyzed. Abnormal findings were found in 85.2% (428) of patients. Malignant oesophageal stricture (41.8%) was most common finding followed by esophagitis (17.3%), benign oesophageal stricture (12.7%), achalasia (8.2%), schatzki's ring (2.4%) and other findings (2.8%). Risk factors for malignancy include male gender, age above 30 years and duration of dysphagia between 12–24 weeks.
Dysphagia is an alarm symptom and upper endoscopy is an effective tool in the initial evaluation of dysphagia.
Dysphagia, strictures, endoscopy
