Surgical treatment of the lower esophageal ring.

Abstract

THE differential diagnosis of dysphagia must include consideration of the lower esophageal ring. This entity was first described in 1953 by Schatzki and Gary1 and Ingelfinger and Kramer2 as a constant, symmetrical, weblike area of narrowing in the lower esophagus just above the diaphragm. The former subsequently reported3 that the ringlike narrowing occurs at the junction of esophageal and gastric mucosa in association with a small sliding hiatus hernia of the stomach. They stated that dysphagia invariably appears when the diameter of the ring is less than 12 mm. The smaller the lumen, the greater the degree of dysphagia. In . . .