ARE THERE CHANGES IN ORGANOPHOSPHORUS POISONING TRENDS OVER A 10 YEARS PERIOD?

  • Monica Dumitrașcu 1Clinical Emergency Hospital, Bucharest, Romania
  • Florentina Mușat 2The University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Carol Davila", Bucharest, Romania
  • R A Macovei 1Clinical Emergency Hospital, Bucharest, Romania 2The University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Carol Davila", Bucharest, Romania
Keywords: organophosphorus compound, poisoning, acetylcholinesterase

Abstract

Organophosphates poisoning represents a challenge for the emergency medical specialist, the first who comes into contact with intoxicated patients and who should promptly manage this pathology. Our study aims to determine whether there are any significant changes after a 10 years period regarding some characteristics of the patients with acute organophosphorus compounds poisoning. The study was retrospective, observational, descriptive, non-randomized and took place at the Bucharest Emergency Clinical Hospital during 1st of January 1995 – 31st of December 1997 and 1st of January 2014 – 31st of December 2016 respectively. Our study was based on the comparative assessment of two groups of patients as follows: patients admitted during 1995-1997 (292 patients) and patients admitted during 2014-2016 (161 patients). The percentage of suicidal attempts through organophosphorus compounds decreased over the course of 10 years from 84.78% in 1996 to 63.63% in 2016. A psychiatric pathology was identified in 39.31% of the suicidal attempts and in 15.68% of accidental contact cases. Regarding the distribution of exposure type per year, we observed an increase in cases where the penetration pathway occurred through skin and inhalation from 9.57% in 1995 to 18.33% in 2015, with a proportional decrease in the digestive exposure. In the analyzed groups, 36 deaths were identified, with an equal distribution in the two studied periods, of about 8-10%.  Although there was a 10-year interval between the two patient lots during which intensive care techniques have significantly progressed, we observed from the statistical data that the death rate did not decrease significantly in the 2014-2016 lot compared to the 1994-1996 lot. We believe that this is partly due to the gravity of these patients and to the time elapsed from the presentation of the patients to the physician and appropriate treatment initiation.

References

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S. S. Peshin, A. Srivastava, N. Halder, and Y. K. Gupta, “Pesticide poisoning trend analysis of 13 years: A retrospective study based on telephone calls at the National Poisons Information Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi,” J. Forensic Leg. Med., 2014.

M. Eddleston et al., “Differences between organophosphorus insecticides in human self-poisoning: A prospective cohort study,” Lancet, 2005.

M. B. Colovic, D. Z. Krstic, T. D. Lazarevic-Pasti, A. M. Bondzic, and V. M. Vasic, “Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors: Pharmacology and Toxicology,” Curr. Neuropharmacol., 2013.

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Published
2019-07-05
How to Cite
Dumitrașcu, M., Mușat, F., & Macovei, R. (2019). ARE THERE CHANGES IN ORGANOPHOSPHORUS POISONING TRENDS OVER A 10 YEARS PERIOD?. Romanian Journal of Clinical Research, 2(1), 3-7. https://doi.org/10.33695/rjcr.v2i1.21
Section
Articles