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material in oesophageal lumen cranial to the obstruction and dysfunctional induced megaoesophagus (Broekman and Kuiper 2002). The colt described in this paper was a neonate at the time of his admission and he ingested only pure milk. Therefore, obstructionbysolid food inducedmegaoesophagus was not suspected. The fibrescope as well as nasogastric tube passed the oesophageal lumen without significant problems and we could not see any reason why the milk should stop at the stenosis site. However, the presence of megaoesophagus cranial to the oesophageal narrowing cannot be explained either, besides the fact that the cervical oesophagus is located directly under the skin and it is not surrounded by the other organs. Therefore cervical oesophageal dilation could be easier than thoracic oesophageal dilatation. Reports have described dysfunction-induced megaoesophagus caused by oesophageal ectasia, oesophageal agangliosis in a horse and replacement of muscular cells by fat tissue in a calf (Rohrbach and Rooney 1980; Barber et al. 1983; Vestweber et al. 1985; Klein et al. 1989). Similar neural or other tissue deficits were not seen during histopathological examination in our case. Severe gastric ulceration can also cause megaoesophagus (Murray andBall 1988), but gastric nonglandularmucosaas well as distal oesophageal mucosa were normal in our case. Congenital stenosis is preferably treated by balloon


dilation or bougienage in people. If unsuccessful, surgery is necessary (Amae et al. 2003; Elhalaby et al. 2006). Balloon dilation of an oesophageal stricture in a foal has been described with a successful outcome (Tillotson et al. 2003). In our case, the possible treatment of oesophageal stricture was refused by the owner. Moreover the prognosis was poor due to the presence of megaoesophagus and aspiration pneumonia. Congenital oesophageal stenosis is rarely described in the


horse and to our best knowledge multiple stenosis together with megaoesophagus has not previously been described. Congenital oesophageal stenosis with megaoesophagus should be listed as a differential diagnosis in neonatal foals suffering from dysphagia and cervical oesophageal swelling.


Authors’ declaration of interests No conflicts of interest have been declared.


Acknowledgements


This study was supported by the grant of Internal Grant Agency no. 1/2011/FVL, no. 46/2012/FVL and no. 51/2012/FVL University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno. The authors would like to acknowledge to Dr Mojmir Dvorak for case referral and further cooperation on the case and Dr Petr Soukup for technical support.


Manufacturer’s address 1Hexal AG, Holzkirchen, Germany.


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