Читать книгу The Esophagus - Группа авторов - Страница 151

As the population continues to age, pharyngeal disorders have become an increasingly common problem in modern medical practice. Many patients have swallowing dysfunction caused by neurologic conditions such as dementia or strokes, whereas others have morphologic lesions such as pharyngeal carcinoma or Zenker’s diverticulum. The videofluoroscopic examination is a valuable technique for demonstrating a wide range of functional and structural lesions of the pharynx in these individuals. Esophagography (primarily double‐contrast esophagography) is an equally valuable tool for detecting clinically significant disease of the esophagus in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), infectious esophagitis, esophageal carcinoma, or other structural lesions of the esophagus. Videofluoroscopic evaluation of the esophagus is also a useful technique for assessing esophageal motility and for detecting motility disorders such as achalasia and diffuse esophageal spasm. Thus, pharyngoesophagography has a major role in the evaluation of patients with pharyngeal or esophageal disease. This chapter reviews the various pathologic conditions involving the pharynx and esophagus and their associated findings on barium studies.