Pharyngeal transit adaptation to bolus volume and consistency in Chagas’ disease

Resumo

Background: Esophageal Chagas’ disease causes a longer pharyngeal bolus clearance, which may be an adaptation to the impairment of esophageal bolus transit. This adaptation should be present when we change volume or consistency of the swallowed bolus. Methods: By the videofluoroscopic method, the correlation was calculated between bolus volumes of 5 and 10mL, and consistencies liquid and paste on pharyngeal clearance duration and hyoid movement duration using the Pearson correlation coefficient (r). It was evaluated 17 patients with Chagas’ disease and 15 normal volunteers. Results: In both groups, there was no correlation between the pharyngeal clearance duration and the hyoid movement duration. In pharyngeal clearance there was a positive correlation between the volumes of 5 and 10mL and between liquid and paste boluses in patients with Chagas’ disease, but not in controls. In hyoid movement duration the correlation between the volumes of 5 and 10mL was positive and significant in Chagas’ disease patients for liquid and paste bolus, and only for paste in controls. Conclusion: Patients with Chagas’ disease have a positive correlation of bolus flow through the pharynx related to change in bolus volume and bolus consistency, which suggested that they have a more important control of pharyngeal flow related to bolus volume and consistency than normal volunteers.