Clinical aspects of pseudodysphagia

Pseudodysphagia is the description of the sensation of a feeling of a lump in the throat--commonly known as the globus symptom. A prospective analysis of 145 consecutive patients with this symptom seen by an Otolaryngologist has provided confirmation that a high proportion of these patients have a treatable basis for their complaints and that most can be successfully managed without time-consuming and expensive investigations--provided clinical evaluation includes thorough visualisation of the oropharynx and supraglottis. The explanation for the symptomatology in patients who suffer from reflux oesophagitis is probably referred pain from the region of the lower oesophageal sphincter rather than spasm of the upper sphincter. The expression globus hystericus is outdated and should be discarded, and we recommended describing the symptoms as primary globus pharyngeus when there is no evident cause and secondary globus pharyngeus when the aetiology is detectable.