The Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH) has done 375 special procedures in the last five years to treat achalasia cardia, a rare and debilitating disease which affects a person's food pipe, the hospital said in a statement.

The SGRH, a leading private hospital in the national capital, said that a recent advancement called POEM (Per Oral Endoscopic Myotomy) has dramatically improved the treatment outcomes of this complex disorder.

The Institute of Liver, Gastroenterology and Pancreaticobiliary Sciences (ILGPS) at the SGRH has consistently been at the forefront of performing and pioneering POEM procedures in north India, Doctors at the facility have performed 375 POEM procedures over the last five years and all these patients were in the age group of 14-90 with mean age of 47 years, and comprised 43 per cent females and 57 per cent males, it said.

According to Dr Anil Arora, Chairman, Institute of Liver, Gastroenterology and Pancreaticobiliary Sciences “In Achalasia Cardia, the LES fails to relax during swallowing and hence food cannot enter the stomach and gets stuck up in the food pipe. As a result patients with Achalasia Cardia have difficulty in swallowing, develop chest pain followed by vomiting out of the swallowed food. The symptoms can be devastating with most patients suffering from loss of weight and poor quality of life.”

“The biggest enigma in diagnosis of this rare condition which occurs in one in 100000 individuals is that the disease is often missed initially and is mistakenly diagnosed as Gastroesophageal reflux disease called GERD  which  is very common condition prevalent in one fifth of the population as the symptoms of chest pain, vomiting and  regurgitation of food are equally prevalent in both diseases with diagrammatically opposite treatment,” Dr Arora said”

According to Dr Shrihari Anikhindi, Consultant, Institute of Liver, Gastroenterology and Pancreaticobiliary Sciences at the hospital said “Among the various treatment options available for Achalasia Cardia, POEM has now become the preferred treatment option due to its minimally invasive non-surgical nature and rapid and almost complete symptom relief with excellent outcomes. In POEM, the non-relaxing LES is cut from within the cavity of the esophagus using endoscopy. Reporting on their experience, they have noted excellent success rates of up to 95 per cent at their centre.”

Achalasia cardia affects the food pipe, also called the oesophagus, and leads to problems in swallowing. The oesophagus performs a vital function of transporting the food into the stomach.