Diffuse spasm and muscular hypertrophy of the lower esophagus.

Abstract

Although diffuse spasm and muscular hypertrophy of the esophagus are a well documented entity, its recognition in this country has been belated despite early description, and the disease is still often unrecognized by American radiologists. It is the purpose of this report to reacquaint the reader with this entity and to illustrate its roentgen aspects. This communication is of more than academic interest since appropriate surgical therapy is now available for its relief (1, 3). To our knowledge, the first report in the American literature was that in 1934 by Moersch and Camp (5), who described 8 patients with what we now would consider typical symptoms. Little interest was given to this subject until 1960 when Johnstone (2) published an extensive study that reviewed in depth the clinical and radiological features of the disease. During the past few years, several reports have been published, indicating increased interest in the subject (1, 4). Clinical Aspects The etiology of the disease is unknown, alth...