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Eating disorder or oesophageal achalasia during adolescence: diagnostic difficulties

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Abstract

Marine was a fourteen and a half-year-old adolescent female hospitalized for an eating disorder (ED) of the anorexic type with purging behaviors. She has had a complicated life course, made up of disruptions and discontinuities, both family and school. Since the age of five, Marine had been intermittently treated in psychiatry for a diagnosis of oppositional defiant disorder. The current illness started with spontaneous and induced vomiting associated with major weight loss (body mass index, 15.27 kg m−2). The diagnosis of anorexia nervosa was established after several opinions from professionals in five Parisian university pediatric departments, where additional investigations were carried out without any somatic cause being identified. In this context, Marine was transferred to a child psychiatry unit. There, she had acute dyspnea during the insertion of a nasogastric tube. As a result, a new specialized opinion was sought from a pediatric gastroenterologist and further explorations were performed (oeso-gastroduodenal transit and manometry), leading to the conclusion to an oesophageal achalasia requiring surgical treatment. This case report highlights that the exclusion of any organic disorder should be a priority in the diagnostic assessment of an ED. Oesophageal achalasia is a rare differential diagnosis and should be considered in case of swallowing difficulties or dysphagia. Health care professionals should take care to provide appropriate somatic follow-up for patients with psychiatric disorders.

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Acknowledgements

A. Letranchant and N. Godart collected clinical data. A. Letranchant, M. Flament and N. Godart wrote the first draft of the manuscript. B. Pigneur improved the final version of the manuscript. All authors have approved the final article as submitted. Everyone who contributed significantly to this work is listed in this section. A recent oral presentation of this case report was made at a European conference (European council on eating disorders, September, 2017).

Funding

This work did not receive any specific Grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Adolescent and Young Adult Psychiatry Unit, Institut Mutualiste Montsouris, 42 Boulevard Jourdan, 75014, Paris, France

    Aurélie Letranchant & Nathalie Godart

  2. Medical School, Paris Descartes University, 15 rue de l’Ecole de Médecine, 75005, Paris, France

    Aurélie Letranchant

  3. Laboratory of Intestinal Immunity, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale INSERM UMR1163, Institut Imagine, Paris, France

    Bénédicte Pigneur

  4. Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Necker Enfants Malades Hospital, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cite, Paris, France

    Bénédicte Pigneur

  5. Institute of Mental Health Research Royal Ottawa Hospital, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

    Martine Flament

  6. CESP, INSERM, Paris-Sud University, UVSQ, Paris-Saclay University, Paris, France

    Nathalie Godart

Authors
  1. Aurélie Letranchant
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  2. Bénédicte Pigneur
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  3. Martine Flament
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  4. Nathalie Godart
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Correspondence to Aurélie Letranchant.

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On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

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All procedures were performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Consent from the mother of the patient (minor) described in the clinical case was obtained for the sharing of the patient’s data in accordance with anonymity requirements.

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Letranchant, A., Pigneur, B., Flament, M. et al. Eating disorder or oesophageal achalasia during adolescence: diagnostic difficulties. Eat Weight Disord 25, 87–90 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-018-0513-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-018-0513-2

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