Dysphagia with systemic diseases.

When a patient presents with dysphagia, the physician generally expects to find a local cause for the patient's complaint. Although local causes can explain many of the patient's swallowing difficulties, diseases that affect more than one organ or organ system may manifest as first or accompanying symptom of this "systemic disease". This article attempts to give an as complete as possible overview of these systemic diseases. Blood and immunologic, cardiac, dermatologic diseases, diabetes, drugs, gastroenterologic and pulmonary diseases, sarcoidosis, systemic disorders and webs will be discussed. Aging, not really a disease but a physiological phenomenon, will also be discussed because of repeated complaint of dysphagia in the elderly. Neuromuscular disease, cancer and the immunocompromised patient will not be included in this paper as they are presented by other authors in this report.