page_title: Therapeutic endoscopy
section_title: Dilatation
hierarchical_section_title: Therapeutic endoscopy / Types of endoscopic therapy / Dilatation
caption_attribution_description: English: Pyloric stricture (through which the scope could not be passed) dilated with Boston Scientific balloon.
context_page_description: Therapeutic endoscopy is the medical term for an endoscopic procedure during which treatment is carried out via the endoscope. This contrasts with diagnostic endoscopy, where the aim of the procedure is purely to visualize a part of the gastrointestinal, respiratory or urinary tract in order to aid diagnosis. In practice, a procedure which starts as a diagnostic endoscopy may become a therapeutic endoscopy depending on the findings, such as in cases of upper gastrointestinal bleeding, or the finding of polyps during colonoscopy.
  A number of different techniques have been developed to allow treatment to be carried out endoscopically, to treat disorders such as bleeding, strictures and polyps.
context_section_description: Dilatation of benign oesophageal strictures using semi-rigid bougies existed long before the advent of flexible endoscopes. Since that time oesophageal dilatation has been carried out using either bougies or endoscopic balloons, and can be used to treat benign oesophageal strictures and achalasia.
  Initially, bougies were used to dilate benign strictures of the oesophagus. These could be passed alongside the endoscope, allowing visualisation of the bougie passing through the stricture, but the technique of passing a guidewire through the stricture endoscopically, then removing the endoscope and passing the bougie over the guidewire was more commonly used.
  More recently, balloon dilatation of the oesophageal strictures has become more common. It is thought that this technique carries a lower complication rate than the use of bougies, and since endoscopy balloons are single use items there are no concerns about equipment sterilization. In addition to oesophageal dilatation, endoscopic balloons can also be used to dilate pyloric strictures.
caption: Pyloric stricture dilated with endoscopic balloon
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