Clinical Spectrum and Outcome of Poisoning
- PDF / 102,173 Bytes
- 1 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 75 Downloads / 168 Views
SCIENTIFIC LETTER
Clinical Spectrum and Outcome of Poisoning Abhinav Tiwari 1 & Pranay Trivedi 1 & Sumita Mishra 1 & Meeta Sachdev 1 & Sambita Panda 1 & G. Malini Chandramohan 1 Received: 17 July 2020 / Accepted: 16 October 2020 # Dr. K C Chaudhuri Foundation 2020
To the Editor: Childhood poisoning is one of the commonly encountered emergencies in pediatric practice. Most of the cases in childhood poisoning are accidental and thus, preventable. Intentional poisoning becomes more likely in the adolescent age group, mainly due to arguments with parents or stress [1]. All children below 18 y of age admitted in our Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and pediatric ward with history of poisoning or intoxication during the study period from October 2017 to September, 2019 were included in the study. One to three years age group had the maximum number of cases that is in concordance with the studies conducted by Vasanthan et al. study [2], Nowneet et al. study [3] and Sil et al. study [4]. The high incidence in this age group is due to their inherent inquisitiveness, higher oral exploratory activity along with newly acquired mobility and hand skills. Children of parents belonging to lower middle class group [65.7% (67)] were more commonly involved in poisoning incidents due to less educational qualification of parents, more family members, less storage spaces and overcrowding. Hydrocarbon (Kerosene oil) was the most common type of poison in our study. Adolescents were most commonly involved in suicidal poisoning and there was female predominance over males in concordance with other studies [5]. Majority [89.11% (11)] of the children admitted had not received any pre-referral treatment. Vomiting was the most common clinical presentation. Antidotes like atropine, PAM, physostigmine, N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) and vitamin K were given to 21.78% (22) children, when indicated. The mean duration of hospital stay in our study was 4.2 d and lesser in expired cases. In our study, 97.03% (98) of children survived and discharged. Death occurred in 2.97% (3) cases. When the child presented with altered sensorium, the
* Abhinav Tiwari [email protected] 1
Department of Pediatrics, Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital & Research Centre, Bhilai, Chhattisgarh, India
outcome was poor. All 3 cases who presented with altered sensorium, died. Childhood poisoning is one of the most common causes of significant morbidity and mortality in children. Even in this era of rapid socioeconomic changes, kerosene still remains the most common agent in pediatric poisoning mainly because it is commonly used household item. All suicidal cases should receive psychiatric counseling before leaving the hospital.
Compliance with Ethical Standards Conflict of Interest None.
References 1. 2.
3.
4.
5.
Dutta AK, Seth A, Goyal PK, et al. Poisoning in children: Indian scenario. Indian J Pediatr. 1998;65:365–70. Vasanthan M, James S, Shuba S, Abhinayaa J, Sivaprakasam E. Clinical profile and outcome of poisoning in children admitted to a tertiary referral center in S
Data Loading...
