IN 1958 we reported an experience with the use of adrenocorticosteroids in the treatment of 23 children who had ingested lye.1No definite conclusions could be reached regarding the efficacy of such therapy but the results were sufficiently encouraging to warrant further extension of this study. It also became apparent that the use of early esophagoscopy would be helpful to determine the presence of esophageal burns, and a limited experience with this technique was not found to be harmful. It therefore was decided to extend the study by performing esophagoscopy as soon after admission as practical and to give a full course of treatment only to those patients with esophageal burns. The purpose of this report is to present the results of continuation of this study. A total of 99 patients have had treatment based on early esophagoscopy and 31 have been managed without this procedure, bringing the total