The role of barium esophagogram measurements in assessing achalasia patients after endoscope-guided pneumatic dilation.

Only a few studies have been performed comparing subjective symptom improvements with objective improvement in esophageal emptying after pneumatic dilation (PD), and discrepancy existed. We evaluated whether esophagogram measurements adds to the traditional subjective symptoms scores in assessing achalasia patients after PD. We enrolled 32 new patients with achalasia who received endoscope-guided PD treatment between January 1998 and June 2004. Postdilation investigations were performed by using esophageal emptying on esophagogram prospectively in a blinded manner, along with symptom scores before and after PD at the initial investigation, 6 weeks later, and every 1 year thereafter. Our results showed that seven patients who noted complete relief showed less than 50% improvement in barium column height and esophageal diameter. There was no linear correlation between the degree of patient symptom improvement and esophageal emptying measured by esophagogram (r = 0.181, P = 0.322). A trend of association existed in the relationship between clinical remissions and initial post-PD esophageal emptying improvement (P = 0.067). In summary, the association between the post-PD symptom score improvement and degrees of esophageal emptying may be hampered by the small sample size in the current study. An additional objective parameter like esophagogram to the subjective symptom scores may be more optimal in assessing clinical remissions.