A case series was conducted at our institution on the the use of self-expanding metal stents (SEMS) in the cervical esophagus and their tolerability. Departmental records identified 20 consecutive stents placed in the cervical esophagus of 12 patients at our institution. There were 6 men and 6 women, mean age 67.2 years (range, 47.6-91.6 years). Ten patients had either primary or recurrent malignant disease and two had benign disease; a recalcitrant stricture at the oesophago-gastric anastomosis following oesophagectomy and a tracheo-oesophageal fistula secondary to tracheomalacia. Three patients received multiple stents on separate occasions requiring 2, 3, and 6 stents. Nineteen stents were placed radiologically with fluoroscopic guidance via a per-oral route under conscious sedation, and one was placed under direct endoscopic visualisation. Patients were followed up until death or to date. All stents were successfully deployed across the strictures. There was no foreign body sensation (FBS) reported after 16 of the procedures (80%). One patient reported transient FBS. Three stents were removed without complication because of symptoms; the endoscopically placed stent which was within 5 mm of cricopharyngeus and two which were inadvertently deployed across cricopharyngeus. There were no other significant complications related to the stent or procedure. All patients reported significant improvement in dysphagia with dysphagia scores improving from a mean of 3.1/4 to 0.9/4 (Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranks test, P = 0.0158). One stent migrated in a patient with malignant disease; however, all 6 stents placed across the benign stricture migrated. Hence our case series concludes that SEMS can be safely and effectively deployed in the cervical esophagus.
Conscious Sedation ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Deglutition Disorders ; Esophagus* ; Female ; Fistula ; Foreign Bodies ; Humans ; Male ; Pharyngeal Muscles ; Sensation ; Stents* ; Tracheomalacia

Adolescence stage is filled with enormous changes and challenges. At this stage, adolescents are not mentally mature so they failed to adjust to the changes of their life and are at greater risk of developing smoking habit. Many psychosocial factors contribute to adolescents’ smoking, among them family role is prominent. So, the present correlational study aimed to highlight the familial predictors of smoking in adolescents. It was hypothesized that parenting styles, lack of parent-child communication, less parental monitoring, parents and sibling smoking would be related to adolescents smoking. Data was collected from 150 adolescents (smokers: 70, non-smokers: 80) throughconvenient sampling technique. Parental bonding instrument and parental monitoring questionnaire were used. Binary Logistic regression revealed less Parental care and father’s monitoring, lack of mother-child communication and siblings’ smoking as significant predictors of smoking. The study implications are discussed with its application in health, social and counseling psychology.