Mortality rate after pneumatic dilatation for achalasia

Abstract

With great interest we have read the article ‘Outcomes of pneumatic dilatation and Heller’s myotomy for achalasia in England between 2005 and 2016’ of Harvey et al. 1 In this retrospective study, the efficacy and complication rate were compared between pneumatic dilatation (PD) and Heller’s myotomy (HM) over 10 years. The Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) database of England was used to include achalasia patients treated with PD or HM. Subjects were identified by the presence of an International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) code for diagnosis and treatment. With the large sample …