Abstract A CASE is presented in which a post-cricoid web was shown arising posteriorly instead of in the almost invariable anterior situation. The patient was not anaemic and some brief comments are made on the inconstant relationship between anaemia and the presence of a web.

Kelly (1919) related dysphagia to anaemia and described how ‘the gullet seemed closed by a web passing backwards from the cricoid’. Subsequent authors emphasize this and Waldenstrom and Kjellberg (1939) state that radiologically and at oesophagosopy there is ‘a thin semilunar membrane on the anterior wall stretching towards the lateral walls of the gullet’ Shamma'a and Benedict (1958) and Seaman (1967) state that webs arise anteriorly but may be circumferential.

This report presents a patient with longstanding dysphagia and anaemia in whom a posterior pharyngeal web was shown.