Related Experiment Videos
Early operation for severe corrosive injury of the upper gastrointestinal tract
B Berthet1, P Castellani, M I Brioche
1Department of Surgery, Hôpital de la Conception, Marseille, France.
Objective:
To describe our experience of treating severe corrosive burns of the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract.
Design:
Open study.
Setting:
Teaching hospital, France.
Subjects:
18 patients who had swallowed an alkaline substance (caustic soda in 10 cases) and 4 who had swallowed either hydrochloric or sulphuric acid.
Interventions:
Endoscopy was done a mean of 4 hours after the substance had been swallowed. 10 patients underwent oesophagogastrectomy without thoracotomy.
Main Outcome Measures:
Morbidity and mortality.
Results:
4 of the 10 patients died and 3 developed postoperative complications. Of the 12 patients treated by feeding jejunostomy 7 developed stenosis that required operation and 3 developed stenosis that responded to dilatation. None of the 12 died.
Conclusions:
Early oesophagoscopy allowed optimal management. Patients died if they swallowed more than 60 ml of a strong alkaline substance. When patients are treated conservatively about half will develop stenoses that require operation.