Predictive value of symptoms and demographics in diagnosing malignancy or peptic stricture

Figure 1 The outcome following investigation of 2000 consecutive patients referred with dysphagia. Some patients had more than one diagnosis and some had a diagnosis endoscopically which was unlikely to be the cause of the dysphagia. Only outcomes with an occurrence of 10 or more are shown. Other diagnoses with lower frequency were gastric (7), esophageal (5) and duodenal ulcers (4), compression from vascular structures including left atrium (4), pancreatic cancer (3), ear, nose and throat cancers (2), esophageal gastrointestinal stromal tumors (2), drug reaction (2), esophageal spasm (2) or diverticulum (2) and 1 each of respiratory infection, celiac disease, small intestinal stricture, goitre, post-operative stricture, pseudomembranous esophagitis, varices, pyloric ulcer, scleroderma, thyroglossal cyst and pharyngitis. Oesophageal cancer includes adenocarcinoma (98), squamous cancer (46), unspecified oesophageal cancers (4) and junctional cancers (18). GORD: Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease.