0000000000359472
AUTHOR
Maren Ebert
Achalasia with megaesophagus and tracheal compression in a young patient: A case report.
Highlights • This report emphasizes that physicians should be alert and consider airway obstruction and signs of dyspnea as severe and threatening symptoms in extensive cases of achalasia with megaesophagus. • Early surgical treatment provides a therapeutic option to obviate the occurrence of acute respiratory distress and consecutive complications. • In particular, difficulties in intubation prior to surgery must be considered. Due to potential tracheomalacia, the status of “bull frog neck” in achalasia, including severe tracheal compression caused by megaesophagus with concomitant cervical swelling, may also lead to extubation problems and deserves special care in the postoperative period.
Late consequences of traumatic rupture of the diaphragm.
A 54-year-old man was admitted to our clinic due to elevated γ-glutamyltransferase, without any clinical symptoms. About 25 years ago, he had undergone blunt abdominal and thoracic trauma during an accident. No diagnostic measures or therapy had been performed at that time. Serum bilirubin was normal, but the values for alanine transaminase, aspartate transaminase, and alkaline phosphatase were slightly above the reference range. Sonography of the abdomen revealed dilated intrahepatic bile ducts up to 3 mm in diameter and steatosis of the liver grade I. CT scan and MRI of the thorax and abdomen showed a giant hiatal hernia with transposition of upper abdominal organs into the chest. As the …