[Complication caused by abuse of alkalies in the treatment of ulcers].

The authors report the case of a 57 year old man who had taken for several years large quantities of alkaline drugs to relieve pain due to a gastric ulcer. This man presented acute digestive symptoms, and a confusional syndrome explained by various metabolic disturbance and especially hypercalcemia at 145 mg. Stopping the alkalis permitted within a few days the disappearance of the clinical symptoms and the correction of the laboratory disturbances. In the light of this case, the authors study the main clinical cases which have been described either in their acute form or in their chronic form (Burnett's syndrome). They discuss above all the physiopathology of these manifestations and it seems to them that the hypercalcemia is more important than the alkalosis. It remains to be explained why only a small number of subjects are exposed to these metabolic complications. There seems to be an individual hypersensitivity for under normal conditions, excess calcium is not sufficient to induce hypercalcemia.