What is the medical term for difficulty or inability to swallow?

The medical term for difficulty or inability to swallow is dysphagia. It can affect the movement of food or liquid from the mouth through the throat and esophagus to the stomach, and it is a symptom rather than one single disease.

Doctors commonly divide dysphagia into oropharyngeal and esophageal types. Oropharyngeal dysphagia involves difficulty initiating a swallow or controlling food in the mouth and throat. Esophageal dysphagia occurs when food feels stuck after the swallow has begun. Causes range from stroke and neurological disease to inflammation, strictures, achalasia, and tumors.

Untreated swallowing problems can lead to aspiration, dehydration, malnutrition, and pneumonia. Dysphagia is not the same as odynophagia, which means painful swallowing, or globus, the sensation of a lump in the throat without necessarily having impaired swallowing.

The word comes from Greek roots: dys means bad or disordered, while phag- relates to eating. Aphagia means an inability to swallow, but dysphagia is the standard broad medical term for swallowing difficulty.