Endoscopic Diagnosis of Dysphagia Lusoria

Author Info

Ryon L Arrington Bradley Leshnower William D. Jordan Jeffrey Javidfar

Corresponding Author

Jeffrey Javidfar
Department of Surgery, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

A B S T R A C T

Dysphagia Lusoria is a condition illustrated by difficulty in swallowing secondary to an aberrant right subclavian artery arising from the distal aortic arch and progressing posteriorly to the esophagus. The course of the artery forms a band that narrows the mid-esophagus. We present a case of a patient with a history of dysphagia and a presumed diagnosis of an esophageal stricture based on a barium swallow study. She was undergoing repeated balloon dilations of the “esophageal narrowing” without symptom relief. The patient sought a second opinion in thoracic surgery. A pulsatile band along the posterior esophagus was noted on endoscopy. Subsequently, a CT angiography confirmed the diagnosis of an aberrant right subclavian artery and surgical repair with a right subclavian and carotid bypass was performed. Afterwards, the patient’s dysphagia was still resolved, and at one year follow up the patient remained symptom free. In today’s age of frequent endoscopic intervention, uncommon etiologies for dysphagia should be considered in the differential diagnosis. If a pulsatile band along the mid-posterior esophagus is noted on endoscopy, an aberrant right subclavian artery should be in the differential. In this situation, surgical intervention and not an endoscopic procedure is the definitive treatment.

Article Info

Article Type

Case Report

Publication history

Received: Mon 19, Jul 2021
Accepted: Mon 09, Aug 2021
Published: Thu 26, Aug 2021

Copyright

© 2023 Jeffrey Javidfar. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.SCR.2021.08.19