Tight near-total corrosive strictures of the proximal esophagus with concomitant involvement of the hypopharynx: Flexible endoscopic management using a novel technique

Table 2 Comparison of the open surgical, rigid endoscopic and flexible endoscopic techniques for the management of the near-total hypopharyngeal strictures

	Surgery	Rigid Endoscopy	Flexible Endoscopy
Hospital admission	Required	Required	Not required
Performed by	Gastro-surgeons in the operation theatres	ENT surgeons in the operation theatres	Gastroenterologists or surgical endoscopists in the endoscopy suites
Hyper-extension of the patient’s neck	Not required	Required	Not required
Type of anesthesia given	General anesthesia	General anesthesia	Conscious sedation
Anesthetic and procedural time	Longest	Long	Short
External incision over the neck or chest wall	External incision is given. This predisposes to post-operative complications like fistula, wound infection and hematoma formation	Not given	Not given
Concomitant esophageal cicatrisation	Can be tackled	Cannot be tackled	Can be tackled
Clinical recovery after the procedure	Slow	Intermediate	Quick
Morbidity and mortality associated with the technique	High	Low	Least
Contraindications	Elderly patients with comorbidities	Short neck	None
	Severe malnutrition	Retrognathia
	Inability to give general anesthesia	Inability to give general anesthesia
Experience with the procedure till date	Maximum	Limited	Limited