_Esophagoscopic Appearances in Pulsion Diverticulum_.--The
esophagoscope will without difficulty enter the mouth of the sac which
is really the whole bottom of the pharynx, and will be arrested by the
blind end of the pouch, the depth of which may be from 4 to 10 cm. In
some cases the bottom of the pouch is in the mediastinum. The walls
are often pasty, and may be eroded, or ulcerated, and they may show
vessels or cicatrices. On withdrawing the tube and searching the
anterior wall, the subdiverticular slit-like opening of the esophagus
will be found, though perhaps not always easily. The esophageal
speculum will be found particularly useful in exposing the
subdiverticular orifice, and through this a small esophagoscope may be
passed into the esophagus, thus completing the diagnosis. Care must be
exercised not to perforate the bottom of the diverticular pouch by
pressure with the esophagoscope or esophageal speculum. The walls of
the sac are surprisingly thin.
[FIG. 101.--Pulsion diverticulum filled with bismuth mixture in a man
of fifty years.]
_Treatment of Pulsion Diverticulum_.--If the pouch is small, the
subdiverticular esophageal orifice may be dilated with esophagoscopic
bougies, thus overcoming the etiologic factor of spastic or organic
stenosis. The redundancy remains, however, though the symptoms may be
relieved. Cutting the common wall between the esophagus and the sac by
means of scissors passed through the endoscopic tube, has been
successfully done by Mosher.
Various methods of external operation have been devised, among which
are: (1) Freeing the sac through an external cervical incision and
suturing its fundus upward against the pharynx, which has proved
successful in some cases. (2) Inversion of the sac into the pharynx
and suture of the mouth of the pouch. In a case so treated the pouch
was blown out again during a fit of sneezing eight months after
operation. (3) Plication of the walls of the sac by catgut sutures, as
in the Matas obliterative operation for aneurysm. (4) Freeing and
removing the sac, with suture of the esophageal wound. (5) Removal of
the sac by a two-stage operation, in which method the initial step is
the deliverance of the sac into the cervical wound, where it remains
surrounded by gauze packing until adhesions have walled off the
mediastinum. The work is completed by cutting off the sac and either
suturing the esophageal wound or touching it with the cautery, and
allowing it to heal by granulation. External exposure and amputation
of the sac has been more frequently done than any other operation.
Unless the pouch is large, it is extremely difficult to find after the
surgeon has exposed the esophagus, for the reasons that at operation
it is empty and that when the adhesions about it are removed the walls
of the sac contract. After removal, the sac is disappointingly small
as compared with its previous size in the roentgenogram, which shows
it distended with opaque material.
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