[Treatment of benign esophageal stenosis: re-evaluation after 20 years]

In 1972 we described a method for dilatation of esophageal stenosis. The purpose of this paper is to report the results obtained between 1970 and 1989, the patients were studied by X-Rays, "calibration" of the stenosis, endoscopy, biopsy, cytology, gastric analysis and esophageal motility. One hundred and seven patients were treated (mean 60.5 years, M/F 3.9/1). The most frequent etiology was reflux esophagitis (80.3%). Hiatus hernia was present in 84.9%. The stenosis was in the lower third of the esophagus in 92.5%. The BAO was mean: 3.6 mEq/h, and the MAO mean 16.4 mEq/h with a hypersecretion pattern in 33.1% of the cases. Cytology was negative for malignancy in 100%. Biopsy showed esophagitis in 86.9%, Barrett's epithelium in 12.1%, normal tissue in 6.5% and insufficient material in 1.8%. Endoscopy showed 98.1% of grade IV esophagitis. Esophageal motility showed a HPZ of mean 6.5 mmHg. and varying degrees of aperistalsis in 24.3% of the patients. The total number of dilatations was 555 (mean 5.1/pt). The "calibration" of the stenosis previous to the dilatation was mean 8.6 mm, and post dilatation mean 15.6 mm. The result of the procedure was good in 92.5%, regular in 2.8% and bad in 4.6%. The morbidity was 0.9% and the mortality 0.1%. There was relapse of the stenosis in 42% of the cases, the follow-up was mean 3.2 years. Twenty nine patients were submitted to surgery due to failure of the procedure with 68.1% of good results, morbidity of 9% and mortality of 9%. We conclude that this dilatation procedure offers excellent results with a very low morbi-mortality.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)