Accidental ingestion of 6-mercaptopurine

Abstract

Small children who get into the family's medicine cabinet don't discriminate against lethal medicines. The report of Chow et al of children who ingest their siblings' oral cancer chemotherapeutic agents is sobering. With all of the labor-intensive, meticulous care required by healthcare workers and parents of children with cancer, and advances in therapies themselves, we must remember that they still are children, who usually have siblings, all of whom have childhood's “regular” risks such as toxic ingestions.