![Sample our Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing & Allied Health journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5944/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Medicine-Dentistry-Nursing-Allied-Health.jpg"})
Abstract
Oesophagoscopy under anaesthesia -with complete muscular relaxation implies several advantages for both the patient and the examiner. The cricopharyngeal muscle no longer offers any severe obstruction, but it may be more difficult to pass the instrument through the lower sphincter of the oesophagus owing to the muscular relaxation, which permits the abdominal viscera to push the diaphragm cranially. Roentgenologically it is possible to show that if an anaesthetized patient is tilted from the horizontal position to 45° with the head raised, the oesophagus will straighten out because the abdominal viscera fall caudally by gravity. We feel that a short period in this posture during general anaesthesia involves only a negligible risk. As expected from roentgenographic findings, we have also found that it is clinically easier to pass the instrument through the cardia by this procedure.
Based on a paper read before the Swedish Otolaryngological Society on November 28, 1964.