Original article

Atrioesophageal fistula: a case report and literature review

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  • Department of Emergency, the First Affiliated Hospital with Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029, China

Received date: 2020-12-18

  Online published: 2022-07-25

Abstract

Objective To analyze the clinical feature, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of the patients with atrioesophageal fistula(AEF). Methods A patient with AEF admitted to our hospital was reported and the related literatures were reviewed. “Atrioesophageal fistula” was used as the keyword to retrieve the literature from Pubmed database and Wanfang database until June 2020. Results Eighty-three English and 3 Chinese documents related to AEF were retrieved. A total of 43 patients were reported. Forty-one cases were finally enrolled, combined with this case, 42 cases were reviewed. Thirty-three were male and 9 were female in 42 cases, and age range was 27-78 years [mean age (58.02±13.47) years]. The onset of symptoms after the procedure of radiofrequency ablation was 1-50 d, and the average time was(23.74±11.44) d. The common clinical manifestations of patients were fever, nervous system symptoms, chest tightness/chest pain, gastrointestinal bleeding and hemoptysis. The patients were divided into survival group and death group. Compared with survival group, the age in the death group were higher [(62.25±12.29) years vs. (52.38±13.19) years, P<0.05]. The proportion of patients treated with surgery in the survival group was higher than that in the death group (16/18 vs 8/24, P<0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that surgical treatment was an independent protective factor for patients. Conclusions AEF is a serious complication of radiofrequency ablation. The mortality rate of patients is high, and surgical treatment can improve the survival rate of patients.

Cite this article

DONG Yanbin, LI Hua, MAO Lina . Atrioesophageal fistula: a case report and literature review[J]. Journal of Internal Medicine Concepts & Practice, 2021 , 16(04) : 234 -239 . DOI: 10.16138/j.1673-6087.2021.04.003

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