Correlation between our symptom-based scoring system and the Eckardt score for assessing patients with esophageal achalasia

Purpose The Eckardt score (ES) is a famous scoring system used for assessing achalasia patients. We studied the correlation between our scoring system and the ES and examined the relationship between each score and the pathophysiology of achalasia. Methods The subjects were 143 patients with diagnosed achalasia. We assessed the frequency and degree of dysphagia, regurgitation (vomiting), and chest pain on a 5-point scale from 0 to 4, with the product of the frequency and degree score defined as each symptom score (0–16). The sum of the three symptom scores was the Total Symptom Score (TSS). We then studied the correlation between the TSS and the ES, including whether these scores reflected the pathophysiology. Results The median scores were 20 for TSS and 6 for the ES, indicating a high correlation between the two scores ( r = 0.7280, p