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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Pathophysiol. Sep 22, 2025; 16(3): 108900
Published online Sep 22, 2025. doi: 10.4291/wjgp.v16.i3.108900
Published online Sep 22, 2025. doi: 10.4291/wjgp.v16.i3.108900
Esophageal retention on modified barium swallow study: Limited predictive value for true esophageal pathology
Sabrina Lauren Chen, Diana Partida, Connie Wang, Priya Kathpalia, Department of Gastroen
Co-corresponding authors: Sabrina Lauren Chen and Diana Partida.
Author contributions: Chen SL completed statistical analysis, and wrote the manuscript; Chen SL and Partida D conducted chart review; Partida D, Wang C, and Kathpalia P edited the manuscript; Wang C and Kathpalia P conceived of the presented idea; all authors helped to code the data, developed the framework to analyze the data, read and approve the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of California, San Francisco, United States.
Informed consent statement: This was an observational study that utilized existing data from routine clinical care. Therefore, separate consent forms were not required.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: Statistical code and dataset available from the corresponding author at sabrinaLchen@gmail.com. Informed consent was not obtained but the presented data are anonymized, and risk of identification is low.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Sabrina Lauren Chen, MD, Research Fellow, Department of Gastroen
Received: April 25, 2025
Revised: May 12, 2025
Accepted: June 13, 2025
Published online: September 22, 2025
Processing time: 147 Days and 15.4 Hours
Revised: May 12, 2025
Accepted: June 13, 2025
Published online: September 22, 2025
Processing time: 147 Days and 15.4 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This retrospective cohort study evaluated whether esophageal retention observed during modified barium swallow studies (MBSS) predicts clinically relevant esophageal pathology. Among 122 patients with follow-up esophageal studies, no significant association was found between MBSS retention findings and confirmed esophageal disease. These results suggest that while MBSS esophageal visualization may offer theoretical insights, it is not a reliable standalone screening tool for esophageal dysphagia. This study underscores the need for standardized guidelines and multidisciplinary evaluation in dysphagia assessment.