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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Endosc. Sep 25, 2015; 7(13): 1096-1102
Published online Sep 25, 2015. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v7.i13.1096
Published online Sep 25, 2015. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v7.i13.1096
Hospitalization for esophageal achalasia in the United States
Daniela Molena, Benedetto Mungo, Division of Thoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, United States
Miloslawa Stem, Anne O Lidor, Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, United States
Author contributions: All the authors equally contributed to this work.
Institutional review board statement: The study was exempt by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Institutional Review Board.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Daniela Molena is a speaker for Novadaq Corporation. The remaining authors have no disclosures.
Data sharing statement: None.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Anne O Lidor, MD, Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 N Wolfe Street, Blalock 618, Baltimore, MD 21287, United States. alidor1@jhmi.edu
Telephone: +1-410-9550377 Fax: +1-410-6149866
Received: March 13, 2015
Peer-review started: March 16, 2015
First decision: April 10, 2015
Revised: May 2, 2015
Accepted: September 7, 2015
Article in press: September 8, 2015
Published online: September 25, 2015
Processing time: 196 Days and 1.1 Hours
Peer-review started: March 16, 2015
First decision: April 10, 2015
Revised: May 2, 2015
Accepted: September 7, 2015
Article in press: September 8, 2015
Published online: September 25, 2015
Processing time: 196 Days and 1.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: We aimed to assess the outcomes of different treatments in patients hospitalized for esophageal achalasia in the United States. We queried the Nationwide Inpatient Sample database from 2003 to 2010. Patients admitted with a primary diagnosis of achalasia were divided into 3 groups, based on treatment, and compared. About half of the patients did not actually undergo a surgical procedure; yet, they had the highest mortality and lowest home discharge rate. Our data suggest that when achalasia has gone too far and previous treatments have been untimely or ineffective, patients may face non-negligible mortality and morbidity even with endoscopic treatment or supportive care.