Sensitivity of single-contrast radiology in esophageal disease: a study of 240 patients with endoscopically verified abnormality.

Single-contrast radiology of the esophagus was correlated with endoscopy in 240 patients with the following endoscopically verified abnormalities: esophagitis 170, rings 28, malignancies 19, varices 9, miscellaneous 14. For all the abnormalities except mild esophagitis, the overall sensitivity of the radiology in these 240 patients was 92%. All 19 cancers were diagnosed radiologically, whereas 90% of moderate and severe esophagitis was detected. The single-contrast examination thus reliably identified clinically significant disease of the esophagus. Comparison of these results to recent reports employing double-contrast technique suggests that claims of superiority for the double-contrast esophagram over the single-contrast study are not supported.