A rare etiology of frequent illness: dysphagia in the context of Forestier’s disease

INTRODUCTION. Dysphagia is a feeling of obstruction to the normal passage of ingested food. The average duration of the swallowing disorder without determining its cause is (2.8±0.7) years, which is associated with difficulties in interpreting clinical symptoms of patients in primary care institutions. Therefore, it is necessary to remember about the existence of rare causes of dysphagia. One of them is Forestier’s disease – diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis.

AIM. To present an analysis of the clinical and diagnostic features of dysphagia in DF based on a clinical case.

CLINICAL CASES. This work presents an analysis of the clinic and diagnosis of dysphagia in an older patient. The peculiarity of this clinical case is the monosymptomatics of Forestier’s disease, the patient noted only the presence of dysphagia and associated suffocation, without complaining of back pain, upper extremities, etc. The non-specificity of clinical manifestations made diagnosis difficult, despite the severity of the dysphagia phenomenon. This confirms the need to describe clinical cases of DIGS in order to raise awareness among doctors.

CONCLUSIONS. The description of such clinical cases is necessary for the formation of alertness about the rare causes of dysphagia in doctors. The described clinical case demonstrates that the search for the cause of dysphagia requires a thorough analysis of the anamnesis, clinical picture, instrumental and laboratory studies.

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