VIDEO: What’s in a name? How tears of the esophagus became known as Boerhaave syndrome

In this Endo-Sketch, a Healio video series on clinical conditions named after famous colleagues, Klaus Mergener, MD, of the University of Washington School of Medicine, discusses the origin of Boerhaave syndrome.
These full-thickness tears of the esophagus typically occur after violent vomiting and retching, Mergener said. Patients quickly become sick and may develop retrosternal pain, fever, tachycardia and eventually sepsis.
Before the availability of surgical treatment, these tears were largely considered fatal. Now, if the defect occurs in the typical location, the treatment is left-sided

In this Endo-Sketch, a Healio video series on clinical conditions named after famous colleagues, Klaus Mergener, MD, of the University of Washington School of Medicine, discusses the origin of Boerhaave syndrome.
These full-thickness tears of the esophagus typically occur after violent vomiting and retching, Mergener said. Patients quickly become sick and may develop retrosternal pain, fever, tachycardia and eventually sepsis.
Before the availability of surgical treatment, these tears were largely considered fatal. Now, if the defect occurs in the typical location, the treatment is left-sided