title: Delayed upper-airway injury after accidental alkaline ingestion.
abstract: A 62-year-old man presented to the emergency department one week after accidentally drinking an alkaline cleaning agent stored in unlabeled bottle. The day of the incident the patient presented to an outside hospital where he was admitted for an upper endoscopy of the esophagus which was found to be negative for acute injury. An initial chest X-ray taken the day of the incident was also found to be normal. After discharge the patient continued to have a sore throat and marked dysphagia which caused him to vomit repeatedly. Moreover, the patient began to develop chest pain with associated shortness of breath. We present a case of delayed airway injury and tracheal thickening and associated chest pain after alkaline ingestion and we discuss herein the pathophysiology and management of alkaline ingestions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Florida, 1329 SW 16th Street, P.O. Box 1000186, Gainesville, FL 32610-0186, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Ryan
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Florida, 1329 SW 16th Street, P.O. Box 1000186, Gainesville, FL 32610-0186, USA.
authors.forename: Mindy
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4454-4950
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fernandez
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Florida, 1329 SW 16th Street, P.O. Box 1000186, Gainesville, FL 32610-0186, USA.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0889-9009
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Laauwe