[Causes of death in cicatricial esophageal obstruction]

An analysis of the causes of death of 85 patients with cicatricial esophageal obstruction after chemical burns is presented. Suppurative complications were most frequently among them: mediastinitis, peritonitis, and aspirational pneumonias. They developed in exacerbations of chronic esophagitis, trauma of the esophageal wall by instrumental interventions and because of necroses of the transplants or incompetence of sutures of the created gastroenterostomies in esophagoplastics or esophagus extirpation. Early application of mediastinal lavage with aspiration of its contents led to delimitation of suppurative foci and fibrosing of their walls. At remote intervals of esophagoplastics, important among the causes of death was the obstruction of transplants from the skin and small intestine arising in extensive commisuration process irrespective of the site of the transplant and accompanied by marked electrolyte disorders.