To determine the clinical and endoscopic demographic characteristics of the ingestion of acidic products in the digestive endoscopy unit of the Cocody University Hospital.

This was a retrospective, descriptive and analytical study on endoscopic reports, which took place for five years, from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2018. All patients were admitted to the digestive endoscopy unit with the indication of ingestion of caustic products. The parameters studied: are demographic, clinical, and endoscopic. The statistical tests used were Pearson's CHI 2 and Fisher's exact tests. The significance threshold was set at 5%.

83 patients were included for an endoscopic prevalence of 1.33%. The mean age was 20.77 ± 16.58 years, with extremes ranging from 1 to 63 years. They were divided into 34 men and 49 women for a sex ratio of 0.69. Accidental circumstances were observed in 73.49% of cases, followed by attempted autolysis (26.51%). Bleach was the most offending caustic (75.90%), followed by hydrochloric acid (14.46%). FOGD was normal in 53.01% and revealed stage I (41.54%) digestive lesions, followed by stage II (35.39%) and stage III (21.53%). The lesions were preferentially gastric (36.11%), esogastroduodenal (27.78%), and esogastric (22.23%). Based on severity, 54.55% of esophageal lesions were stage IIA, 53.12% were stage I gastric lesions, and 54.55% were stage IIA duodenal lesions. One case of gastric perforation was noted (1.54%). In univariate analysis, we found a statistically significant link between the age group of 1–14 years and the accidental intake of caustics (P < 0.001) on the one hand and the other hand between the age group of 26 years and over and taking for autolysis (P = 0.02). Likewise, bleaching was responsible for less severe lesions (P = 0.006).

The seriousness of the ingestion of caustic products requires early, specialized and multidisciplinary management to improve the short, medium, and long-term prognosis of patients.