Poisoning with depilatory agents in Iran

| February 2013 | 168 l e t t e r t O e d it O r These changes in depilator agents affected our patients’ mortality accordingly from 22% in 1998, to 5.7% in 2003,[4] and no mortality in 2009,[5] suggesting that elimination of arsenic from the depilators could change the outcomes dramatically. In this letter we would like to bring the attention of readers to this point that an arsenic base depilatory agent is not an easy available agent in Iran these days, and poisoning with this agent is very uncommon. Yeganeh et al. reported that early surgery could worsen the outcome, so they stopped surgery in the early stage for all patients who were admitted for depilatory poisoning, particularly after 1998, when they knew that most available depilators were not arsenic-based.[4] It has been suggested that early surgical intervention may manifest with more mortalities.[5] Past experience, which showed more mortality in the early stage, and elimination of arsenic from the depilators has convinced the surgeons to be more conservative in recent years.[4] In conclusion, there is no reliable evidence to show that the current depilators are arsenic-based and physicians should avoid treatment for arsenic poisoning without laboratory confirmation, in cases of depilatory ingestion.