An audit of pharyngeal pouch surgery using endoscopic stapling. The patient's viewpoint

We report an audit designed to assess patient satisfaction resulting from pharyngeal pouch surgery using an endoscopic stapler. A personal series of 16 patients all operated on by the senior author over a 3-year period is reported. Information was gathered using a retrospective telephone questionnaire to establish pre- and postoperative symptoms, complications of surgery and patient satisfaction. This showed endoscopic pharyngeal pouch surgery to be successful in the majority of cases. Eighty-seven percent of patients felt better as a result of surgery. Seventy-five percent had no symptoms postoperatively. This series shows that surgery on pharyngeal pouches results in significant improvement in patient symptoms with minimal morbidity and mortality.