Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 14, 2016; 22(14): 3875-3878
Published online Apr 14, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i14.3875
Rare cause of odynophagia: Giant esophageal ulcer
Massimiliano Veroux, Giuseppe Aprile, Francesca F Amore, Daniela Corona, Alessia Giaquinta, Pierfrancesco Veroux
Massimiliano Veroux, Daniela Corona, Alessia Giaquinta, Pierfrancesco Veroux, the Vascular Surgery and Organ Transplant Unit, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences and Advanced Technologies, University Hospital of Catania, 95123 Catania, Italy
Giuseppe Aprile, Endoscopy Unit, Department of Surgical Specialties, University Hospital of Catania, 95123 Catania, Italy
Francesca F Amore, Pathology Unit, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences and Advanced Technologies, University Hospital of Catania, 95123 Catania, Italy
Author contributions: Veroux M and Veroux P designed the report; Aprile G performed the endoscopic procedures; Amore FF performed the histological analysis and immunohistochemical studies; Corona D and Giaquinta A collected the patient’s clinical data; Veroux M analyzed the data and wrote the paper.
Supported by Italian Ministry of Health, No. PE-2011-02350135; and University of Catania, No. FIR-2014.
Institutional review board statement: This case report was exempt from the Institutional Review Board standards at University of Catania.
Informed consent statement: The patient involved in this study gave her written informed consent authorizing use and disclosure of her protected health information.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Massimiliano Veroux, MD, PhD, FEBS, Associate Professor of Surgery, the Vascular Surgery and Organ Transplant Unit, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences and Advanced Technologies, University Hospital of Catania, Via Santa Sofia, 84, 95123 Catania, Italy. veroux@unict.it
Telephone: +39-95-3782384 Fax: +39-95-3782358
Received: August 28, 2015
Peer-review started: August 31, 2015
First decision: September 29, 2015
Revised: October 22, 2015
Accepted: December 12, 2015
Article in press: December 14, 2015
Published online: April 14, 2016
Processing time: 213 Days and 21.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Gastrointestinal complications after kidney transplantation are common and may be associated to an increased risk of serious post-transplant morbidity. Giant esophageal ulcers are very rare and the diagnosis of causality is often delayed. This case illustrates the clinical management of an idiopathic giant ulcer, suggesting the possible role of innate immunity imbalance in the pathogenesis of this rare clinical finding.