BACKGROUND Cervical dilation using mechanical dilators is associated with various complications, such as uterine perforation, cervical laceration, infections and intraperitoneal hemorrhage. To achieve safe and painless cervical dilation, we constructed a new medical device to achieve confident mechanical cervical dilation: a continuous controllable balloon dilator (CCBD). METHODS Controlled p...

Biodegradable stents are increasingly used to treat benign gastrointestinal strictures [1,2]. Here, we report on two patients who developed persistent vomiting after thoraco-abdominal esophageal resection for cancer and perforation. Assessments byendoscopyand imaging studiesdemonstrated a severe stricture of the distal gastric conduit in both patients (●" Fig.1), which were thought likely to be...

An 81-year-old woman with malignant gastric outlet obstruction due to pancreatic adenocarcinoma (▶Fig. 1 a) was referred to our institute for endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)-guided gastroenterostomy. Under general anesthesia, a 0035-inch guidewire (Navigator; Olympus Medical Systems, Center Valley, Pennsylvania, USA) was inserted through the duodenal stenosis (▶Fig. 2 a) deep into the small bowel u...

woman with a 20−year history of inter− mittent dysphagia and regurgitation worsening over the past 6 years. The pa− tient underwent balloon dilatation as the first treatment of her disease. A Rigiflex balloon dilator (Boston Scientific, Boston, MA, USA) with a diameter of 30 mm was positioned over a guide wire at the gas− troesophageal junction under endoscopic control. An endoscope was introdu...

Seventeen Sprague-Dawley rats had ischemic nonoliguric acute renal failure (ARF) induced by vascular clamping resulting in their preischemic blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and creatinine levels of 16 +/- 1 and 0.56 +/- 0.05 mg/dl to increase to 162 +/- 4 and 8.17 +/- 0.5 mg/dl, P < 0.001, respectively, at day 4 of postischemia. Vessel dilator, a 37-amino-acid cardiac peptide hormone (0.3 microg x kg...

The risk of esophageal perforation following endoscopic balloon dilation for achalasia is in the range of 1%-5%, with a mortality rate of 1%-20%. Perforations need to be recognized early, and, if reasonable, an immediate endoscopic repair should be pursued quickly. Herein, we report a case of successful endoscopic closure by clipping of a large iatrogenic perforation in a patient with achalasia...