Eighty-year-old man with 10 years dysphagia

Abstract

Dysphagia is a sensation of food being "stuck" up in its passage from the mouth to stomach. It is of two main types, oropharyngeal dysphagia, and esophageal dysphagia. In oropharyngeal dysphagia, there is difficulty in transferring the food from the mouth to upper esophagus. Thus, this dysphagia is also called as transfer dysphagia. It occurs within 1 st 1-2 s of the swallow. We also call this dysphagia as instant dysphagia. It is almost always associated with sinobronchial symptoms. The second type of dysphagia is esophageal dysphagia in which there is difficulty in passing the food from upper esophagus to the stomach. The two main mechanisms responsible for dysphagia are either a problem with the motor function of oropharynx or esophagus (neuromuscular causes) or mechanical narrowing of oropharynx or esophagus (mechanical dysphagia). As this dysphagia occurs a little later in the act of swallowing, we can call it delayed dysphagia. The mechanical cause of dysphagia includes benign strictures, malignancies, webs and rings, retropharyngeal abscesses, Zenker′s diverticulum, cricopharyngeal bar, and some vascular causes. We report an 80-year-old male with vascular dysphagia.

Keywords

• aberrant right subclavian artery
• dysphagia
• dysphagia lusoria
• vascular dysphagia