ESOPHAGEAL DYSMOTILITY

The diagnosis of oesophageal motor abnormalities is inexact, accounting for the poor results of medical and surgical management. While oesophageal manometry has been peformed for many decades it is only in recent years that these techniques have been taken out of the laboratory and been made more physiological. In patients with oesophageal symptoms a variety of motility disorders have been described. It is still too early to say whether all or some of these are associated with the patients' symptoms. Further refinement of investigative tools will clarify the role of dysmotility in most if not all of our symptomatic patients, provided they are studied in the context of controlled manometrically defined clinical trials. © 1994 Springer.