Investigation and analysis of a poisoning event caused by omphalotus olearius

Abstract

Objective To study the identificantion and confirmation of the cause of a food poisoning event occurring in Yuanmou County, Yunnan Province of China with the epidemiological investigation and molecular biological assay. Methods After admission of the intoxicated patients, the emergency physicians gave the emergency medical care and rescue. The specialists of the Controlling Diseases Center of China(CDC)immediatelly made the identification of mushrooms and analysis of the results. Results A total of 12 workers ate a dish of wild mushroom picked nearby on August 1, 2016.About 10 to 30 minutes after meal, they experienced nausea, vomit, dizziness, diarrhea, abdominal pain and feeling of chest tightness. After the preliminarily medical treatment, four of them refusedto be further treated because of their mild symptom, and were followed up in OPD. Three of them were further treated with gastric lavage and activated charcoal via a gastric tube, and other 5 patients were only treated with liver protection agents. Eight patients were monitored and observed for 3-4 days, in emergency medicine, and they discharged with recovered confirmed via telephone follow-up.CDC specialists identified the mushroom the patients consumed as omphalotus olearius. Therefore, this event was determined as a sudden acute poisonous mushroom poisoning event caused by O. olearius. Conclusions O. olearius produces some bioactive components. But the literature on its toxicity is rather rare. To our knowledge, this is the first to report an O. olearius intoxication event. And we identified this poison morphologically and phylogenetically. This event illustrated us that O. olearius needs further study. Besides, the scientific education in the prevention of mushroom poisoning to general public should be conducted. Key words: Omphalotus olearius; Mushroom poisoning; Species identification; Prevention