Clinical Findings and Treatments of Patients with Zenker's Diverticulum

Junya Oguma, Soji Ozawa, Yuko Kitagawa, Yoshiro Saikawa, Nobutoshi Ando* and Masaki Kitajima

Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Keio University
*Department of Surgery, Ichikawa General Hospital, Tokyo Dental University

Pharyngoesophageal diverticulum (Zenker's diverticulum), which is a pulsion diverticulum that occurs at a weak site in the posterior wall of the pharyngoesophagus, between the inferior constrictor of pharynx and the cricopharyngeus muscle, i.e. Killian's triangle, is rare in Japan. We treated 7 patients with Zenker's diverticulum surgically from 1988 to 2003. We reviewed clinical findings and treatments of them. All had dysphagia initially. All underwent diverticulectomy, and 4 additionally underwent cricopharyngeal myotomy (CM). Postoperatively, 6 patients experienced dramatic alleviation of symptoms. Postoperative complications occurred in 2, i.e. pneumonia in 1 and recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis in the other. No postoperative recurrence was seen. We suggest that diverticulectomy added to CM is effective for Zenker's diverticulum. The patients with a large diverticulum are at risk of postoperative surgical complications due to the difficulty of the surgery, so careful operation is needed for them.

Key words
Zenker' diverticulum, diverticulectomy, cricopharyngeal myotomy

Reprint requests
Soji Ozawa Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Keio University
35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 160-8582 JAPAN

Accepted
December 19, 2003

To read the PDF file you will need Abobe Reader installed on your computer.