View clinical trials related to Esophageal Achalasia.
Filter by:To compare the efficacy of peroral endoscopic myotomy and Botulinum toxin injection in spastic esophageal disorders.
This study is being done to assess the esophageal muscle (swallowing tube) in patients with and without achalasia to further understand and help direct the treatment for patients with achalasia.
This research is being done to see if a study drug called amyl nitrite can be helpful with diagnosing different disorders affecting the lower esophageal sphincter in patients with dysphagia (difficulty swallowing foods) undergoing high resolution esophageal manometry (HRM). Dysphagia may be one of the symptoms of a condition known as idiopathic achalasia. Achalasia is a disorder of the esophagus, the tube that carries food from the mouth to the stomach. This affects the ability of the esophagus to move food toward the stomach. Pseudoachalasia is a secondary form of achalasia, which has very similar symptoms but is caused by different reasons. Because the treatments for achalasia and pseudoachalasia are different, it is important to correctly diagnose each condition. At this time, there is no way to distinguish the two with the current tests used at Johns Hopkins. Amyl nitrite relaxes vascular smooth muscle and has been studied previously as a potential means to separate achalasia from pseudoachalasia. Amyl nitrite is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of cardiac angina. It is not approved for use in motility testing and its use in this study is considered investigational. Investigators hope that the results from the proposed study could have significant clinical implications for patient management by helping doctors distinguish between achalasia and pseudoachalasia and allow them to choose appropriate treatment. Patients with dysphagia (difficulty swallowing foods) undergoing routinely scheduled high resolution esophageal manometry (HRM) may join this study.
Would systemic steroids be an effective treatment in early variants of achalasia?
High Resolution Manometry is a new technology that utilizes 36 solid state sensors on a thin catheter spaced at 1-cm intervals. One can more effectively measure the pressure of the esophagus. It includes a sophisticated software to display the pressures data as color topography plot using time, length of the esophagus and pressure within the entire esophagus. It is unclear if this technology improvement actually correlates with patient's symptoms.