OBJECTIVE The objective of the present study is to evaluate the characteristics of acute poisoning cases admitted to emergency department over a one year period. The demographic, clinical and psycho-social aspects of the patients were analysed. MATERIALS AND METHODS A hospital based study was carried out in the emergency department, Kathmandu University Teaching Hospital/ Dhulikhel Hospital, ...

BACKGROUND Two counter trends in injury mortality have been separately reported in the US in recent times - a declining suicide rate and a rapidly rising unintentional poisoning mortality rate. Poisoning suicides are especially difficult to detect, and injury of undetermined intent is the underlying cause-of-death category most likely to reflect this difficulty. We compare suicide and poisoning...

Poisoning by pesticides and other agricultural chemicals is a major public health problem worldwide, especially in developing countries. Globally, there are about 20,000 annual fatalities and more than 2 million hospitalizations due to poisoning by pesticides and agricultural chemicals.1 There were approximately 340,000 cases of agricultural and horticultural poisoning reported in the United St...

Shellfish toxins are the most dangerous marine biotoxins, and produced by free living micro-algae. Shellfish toxins are concentrated in flesh, and poisoning occurs when these contaminated shellfish is consumed. They can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP), neurotoxic shellfish poisoning (NSP), amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP) and azaspiracid shellfis...

Of 129 patients with carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning, 62(48.0%) had characteristic computed tomographic (CT) findings. The most common finding, seen in 42 patients, was low-density in the cerebral white matter, and the second characteristic feature, seen in 33 patients, was low-density in both globus pallidi. Abnormal CT findings tended to increase in accordance with the duration of unconsciousn...

Both acute and chronic exposure to carbon monoxide (CO) gas can have serious and permanent effects on a person’s health and vision, especially if left untreated. The brain and eyes are at risk upon exposure to this clear, odorless gas due to the large oxygen demands of these structures. This teaching case report highlights the need for eyecare professionals to recognize the possible ocular, sys...

Lead poisoning (saturnism) has been present throughout the history of mankind. In addition to possible ingestion from contaminated food, one of the most important ways in which poisoning caused morbid processes was by occupational exposure. This exposition was pandemic in the Roman Empire, and it has been claimed that it contributed to its fall, but it also caused numerous epidemics in Western ...

At the start of the 20th century, CO poisoning was treated by administering a combination of CO(2) and O(2) (carbogen) to stimulate ventilation. This treatment was reported to be highly effective, even reversing the deep coma of severe CO poisoning before patients arrived at the hospital. The efficacy of carbogen in treating CO poisoning was initially attributed to the absorption of CO(2); howe...

OBJECTIVE To explore factors associated with self-reported food poisoning among Western Australian adults between 1998 and 2009. DESIGN Data were pooled from four Nutrition Monitoring Surveys Series which included information on suspected food poisoning among Western Australian adults. Descriptive statistics and multinomial regression analyses were used to describe factors associated with sel...

BACKGROUND Rodenticide poisoning remains a major public health problem in Asian countries. Nevertheless, very few data are available in world literature regarding the outcomes of these patients. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical outcomes of rodenticide poisonings in our hospital and to compare these data with published reports from other international poison c...