Is an objective evaluation essential for determining the therapeutic effect of laparoscopic surgery among patients with esophageal achalasia?

Background Despite a high degree of satisfaction with laparoscopic Heller–Dor surgery (LHD) for esophageal achalasia, some cases show no improvement in postoperative esophageal clearance. We investigated whether an objective evaluation is essential for determining the therapeutic effect of LHD. Methods We investigated the difference in symptoms, regarding esophageal clearance, using timed barium esophagogram (TBE), in 306 esophageal achalasia patients with high postoperative satisfaction who underwent LHD. Furthermore, these patients were divided into two groups, in accordance with the difference in postoperative esophageal clearance, in order to compare the preoperative pathophysiology, symptoms, and surgical results. Results Although the poor postoperative esophageal clearance group (117 cases, 38%) was mostly male and the ratio of Sigmoid type was high compared to the good postoperative esophageal clearance group ( p = 0.046, p = 0.001, respectively); in patients with high surgical satisfaction, there was no difference in terms of preoperative symptom scores and surgical results. However, although the satisfaction level was high in the poor esophageal clearance group, the scores in terms of the postoperative dysphagia and vomiting were high ( p = 0.0018 and p = 0.004, respectively). The AUC was 0.9842 upon ROC analysis regarding the presence or absence of clearance at 2 min following postoperative TBE and the postoperative feeling of difficulty swallowing score, with a cut-off value of 2 points (sensitivity: 88%, specificity: 100%) in cases with a high degree of surgical satisfaction. Conclusion The esophageal clearance ability can be predicted by subjective evaluation, based on the postoperative symptom scores; so, an objective evaluation is not essential in cases with high surgical satisfaction.