Medical Treatment of Spasms: (Development from our earlier spasms survey, with Stefan Antonowicz, Imperial College)
Achalasia Action are keen to support a project looking at how we can treat spasms/ chest pains as this has been one of the most recurrent themes raised in meetings and is one of the most difficult symptoms to live with, to diagnose/categorize and to treat. We have been working with Stefan Antonowicz from Imperial College on this and one of Stefan’s colleagues has undertaken a review of all the written material on achalasia which concluded that there was not much recent or relevant written material on achalasia. In particular there is nothing on spasms and as clinicians vary in their treatment a proper clinical study of how to treat spasms is needed. This will firstly categorize spasms, secondly recruit volunteers and finally trial treatments; there are several options for treatment. This will be carried out in several locations – by Stefan at Imperial but also Sachs Kumar at Royal Marsden. It will take around a year to get everything in place and get the project up and running.
A previous survey conducted by Amanda Ladell for Achalasia Action included 57 people and they could be asked to participate.