Efficacy of intralesional corticosteroid injection in endoscopic treatment of esophageal strictures.

Background: The present study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of intralesional triamcinolone to improve the results of endoscopic dilation in esophageal strictures.
Methods: We treated 9 patients with complex strictures of different etiologies (2 postsurgery, 3 gastroesophageal reflux disease, and 4 caustic) with intralesional injections of triamcinolone followed by endoscopic dilations. Outcomes of triamcinolone-treated patients were compared with those of historical control. We injected triamcinolone before dilating the strictures. All the patients were followed up for 1 year. The interval between dilations, frequency of dilation, and refractory rates were calculated.
Results: There was no difference between the control group and the patients with steroids regarding baseline characteristics (age and sex distribution of patients and stricture etiologies, length, and location). The patients in the triamcinolone group had a bigger improvement of their dysphagia and had a lower refractority rate than the patients in control group, these differences being statistically significant.
Conclusions: Intralesional triamcinolone presented a higher improvement of dysphagia and a lower refractority rate in patients with complex strictures with statistically significant differences.