Discussion
Corrosive injuries of the stomach and esophagus are not infrequent causes of hospitalization in countries like India [1, 2, 9]. In India, hydrochloric acid is readily available over the counter as a cheap toilet cleaner and is the most common corrosive ingested by lower socioeconomic groups. The next most frequent corrosive agent implicated is gold solvent, which is a 3:1 mixture of concentrated hydrochloric and nitric acid. This preparation is not regulated and is freely available. Alkalis are the cause only in a minority of people, who have access to caustic soda in an industrial or laboratory setting, or as a more expensive toilet cleaner [10]. This is in contrast to the West, where alkali ingestion is more frequent than acid ingestion [11, 12]. Lack of appropriate regulation in the packaging, labelling, and child-proofing of these potentially hazardous substances makes corrosive poisoning a more common problem encountered in this part of the world.