Mortality rate after pneumatic dilatation for achalasia: authors’ reply

We thank Drs Van Hoeij and Bredenoord for their interest in our article.1 2 Their letter focuses on the observed mortality and perforation rates following pneumatic dilatation (PD) for achalasia. It is important to recognise that, unlike the randomised controlled trial3 and systematic review4 quoted by Drs Van Hoeij and Bredenoord, our study was based on unselected subjects with achalasia receiving standard clinical care throughout England.2 Our study therefore contained much older subjects with more comorbidity, as …