What happens in the esophagus? Various features of esophageal diseases on thorax CT.

초록

Various disease entities involve esophagus and many of them are diagnosed on thorax CT. CT alone has limited causative specificity in some esophageal lesions because it may provide little information about the mucosa. However, the extramucosal extent of disease such as intramural, mediastinal involvement or distant spread can be expressed on CT as an advantage. We retrospectively reviewed thorax CT scans of 177 patients with various esophageal lesions. Our series included achalasia (n=4), diverticulum (n=5), esophagitis (corrosive, n=1; infectious, n=3), stromal tumor (n=6), esophageal cancer (n=127), primary esophageal melanoma (n=1), varices (n=6), mural abscesses due to foreign body impaction (n=1) and tuberculosis (n=1), fistula (n=9), duplication cyst (n=2), intramural dissection (n=2), hernia (n=12), and perforation (n=5). In this exhibition, we will illustrate the spectrum of CT findings of various esophageal lesions with correlated findings of other diagnostic modalities such as endoscopy and/or esophagography. We will also discuss about the various post-operative CT features of esophageal cancer.