My husband is seeing Dr. Wayne Koch at Hopkins. He had a throat procedure done a week ago because of a stricture that showed up on his swallowing test (although it didn't keep food, etc. from going down and being swallowed). Dr. Koch only felt the slightest resistance with the first instrument he used in his throat so he wasn't even sure that the scar tissue that showed in the swallowing test was very subtantive. He was not planning to really try to remove it per se due to the likelihood of causing even more scar tissue. He said that sometimes the surgical instrument slices through it but in my husband's case, it didnt' seem to create much resistance so the stricture may not be the real problem. He next moved on to using the dilation instruments to see if his throat was narrowed and it wasn't. My husband's throat has been sore from the procedure so we're not really sure if it was helpful.