Odynophagia can also occur, although severe odynophagia without dysphagia is rare. Most patients not responding to this therapy have been found to have esophageal ulcers. Back to Questions Clinical and endoscopic features of esophageal ulcers caused by viral etiologies and IEU are quite nonspecific. Their overlapping features make diagnosis by appearance and clinical parameters alone impossible. All etiologies may have varying degrees of odynophagia, dysphagia, fever, and gastrointestinal bleeding.
All etiologies can produce ulcers of variable number, depth, and appearance.
The diagnosis is one of exclusion and adequate biopsies must be obtained to rule out viral etiologies. The treatment for IEU is prednisone 40 mg QD with a decreasing taper of 10 mg a week over a 4-week course. Back to Questions Click here to print this page.