Clinical study of abnormal sensation in the throat.

The authors treated 853 patients with abnormal sensations, exclusive of pain and difficulty in swallowing, in the throat from Aug. 1981 to May 1985. There were 363 males and 490 females (1:1.3). At the time of diagnosis, the majority of the patients were in the 3rd, 4th and 5th decades of life. The sensations, 72% of which were located in the middle of the neck, projected mostly (88%) on the level between the hyoid bone and the suprasternal fossa and were strongly felt during empty swallowing by 60% of the patients. In most of the patients, the hematological examination, chemical analysis of blood and serological test were within normal limits. When the answers of the patients to the Cornell Medical Index-Health Questionnaire were analysed by Fukamachi's method, 33% of the patients were classified as normal, 33% as almost normal, 25% as slightly neurotic and 9% as neurotic. The Maudsley Personality Inventory, however, revealed that the decreased score of the lie scale correlated significantly with the increased score of the neurosis scale. No hypopharyngeal malignancies have been detected so far in the patients in this study.