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TÜRKÇE
Oral Presentation - 12
Evaluation of 193 Cases of Corrosive Ingestion: Does the Risk of Esophageal Stricture Decrease?
Efil Aydın Yıldırım, Sercan Sağaltıcı, özde besim, Abdurrahman Karaman, Güngör Karagüzel
Akdeniz University Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatric Surgery, Antalya, Turkey
Aim: Corrosive ingestion in childhood is a significant cause of home accidents. This study aimed to re-evaluate follow-up and treatment algorithms for patients presenting due to corrosive ingestion.
Methods: Patients who presented due to corrosive ingestion and were admitted for follow-up between January 2018 and May 2025 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were evaluated for demographic characteristics, presenting symptoms, characteristics of corrosive substances, laboratory tests (neutrophil, leukocyte, platelet, venous blood pH, CRP) and diagnostic imaging methods. The Zargar classification was used for burn grading.
Results: 193 patients presenting with corrosive ingestion were included in the study. 84 patients were female (43.5%) and 109 were male (56.5%). The mean age was 3.04±4.0 years. Patients were categorized according to the substances they ingested: 62 patients (32.1%) had acids, 112 patients (58.0%) had alkaline and 19 patients (9.9%) had ingested ammonia and other substances (unknown/mixed). The most common presenting complaint was vomiting (66 patients, 34.2%). Rigid esophagoscopy was performed in 51 (26.4%) patients. Burns were detected in 17 (33.3%) patients. The burn severity was grade I in 12 patients, grade IIa in 3 patients and grade IIb in 2 patients. pH values were lower than 7.35 in 7 of the 17 patients with burns (p<0.05). No significant findings were found in other laboratory tests. Contrast radiography was obtained in 5 of the patients with burns. One of these patients was diagnosed with a stricture and was placed on a dilatation program. The patient who developed a stricture was in the alkaline ingestion.
Conclusion: In our series, it was noted that alkaline ingestion was significantly higher among patients, that acidosis at presentation may be related to esophageal burns and that imaging methods such as esophagoscopy/contrast radiography were used selectively. The high number of patients who ingested alkaline and the low number of patients with high-grade burns and esophageal strictures were interpreted as a negative correlation in our series.