Boerhaave syndrome is a rare problem that involves spontaneous appearance of a ruptured esophagus that causes symptoms such as severe chest pain and shortness of breath, for example.
Boerhaave syndrome is usually caused by excessive consumption of food or alcohol that causes severe vomiting, increased abdominal pressure, and overload of esophageal muscles that eventually tear.
- Boerhaave syndrome is a medical emergency and is therefore important to go to the hospital right away if you experience acute chest pain or shortness of breath to start treatment within the first 12 hours and avoid serious complications.
- Such as respiratory arrest.
The main symptoms of Boerhaave syndrome include
These symptoms usually appear after vomiting, but in some cases they may also occur some time later when eating or drinking water, for example.
In addition, symptoms vary in each case and may have completely different signs such as excessive cravings for water, fever, or constant vomiting, so diagnosis is often delayed because the syndrome can be mistaken for other heart or gastrointestinal problems.
Treatment of Boerhaave syndrome should be done in the hospital with emergency surgery to correct rupture of the esophagus and treat infection that usually develops in the chest due to the accumulation of gastric acids and bacteria from food.
Ideally, treatment should be initiated within the first 12 hours after the rupture of the esophagus to prevent the development of a general infection that, after this period, halves the patient’s life expectancy.
Diagnosis of Boerhaave syndrome can be done by chest x-ray and CT scan, however, it is important to have access to the patient’s history to exclude other diseases with similar symptoms, such as perforation of a gastric ulcer, myocardial infarction or acute pancreatitis. , which are more common and can mask the syndrome.
For example, it is recommended that the patient is always accompanied, as far as possible, by a relative or close person who knows the patient’s medical history or who can describe the moment of appearance of symptoms, for example.