Dysphagia characterized by aspiration subsequent to pontine stroke

Abstract

It has been reported that a pontine lesion often results in dysphagia characterized by aspiration. However, the patterns and characteristics of such dysphagia are unknown. We studied 57 patients (34 men, 23 women) with possible dysphagia consequent to pontine stroke. We compared the aspiration characteristics with three different pontine lesion loci (e.g., unilateral, bilateral, and pontine-plus group). Fifteen of 57 patients (26.3%) aspirated upon a spoonful quantity of barium. All 15 aspirators had either a bilateral pontine or pontine-plus lesion. Nine of the 15 (60%) aspirators were "silent" aspirators as revealed in the VFS studies. The conclusion to be drawn from this study is that, unlike the widespread belief, aspiration symptom due to an isolated unilateral pontine infarction may be uncommon and transient.