Study of poisoning pattern at China Medical University from 1997 to 2007

Abstract

The First Poison Control Centre (FPCC) in north-east China was established at China Medical University (CMU) on 01/09/1997 with the help of the ChinaMedical Board of New York. Since then, a large number of poisoning cases have been documented from telephone calls (triaged by specially trained nurses) at the FPCC, and inpatient services at the emergency departments (EDs) of Shengjing Hospital and the First Hospital of CMU. This provides valuable information for the analysis of acute poisoning at CMU in recent years. Records of all adult poisoning cases admitted to the EDs and telephone calls received at the FPCC between 01/10/1997 and 30/ 09/2007 were reviewed. Poisoning characteristics analysed included age and gender of the patient, time of visiting the EDs, exposure duration, reason, route and site, toxic substances involved, possible toxic reagent combination, clinical presentations, treatment received, laboratory results, outcome and sequelae. More than 150,000 adult poisoning cases were treated at the EDs at Shengjing Hospital and the First Hospital of CMU each year. In total, 16,506 ED cases and 1942 FPCC cases over the 10-year period were included in this study. Age groups of subjects were 20– 29 years (37.1% ED, 26.9% FPCC) and 30–39 years (25.8% ED, 20.3% FPCC). The ratio of females to males was 1.5:1 for ED cases and 1:1 for FPCC cases. Table 1 summarizes the toxic substances involved in ED cases. Single-agent poisoning accounted for 89.9% of all ED cases, 9.6% of cases involved two or more substances, and the remaining 0.5% of cases had no known substances. Medicine was the most common agent (41.4%), followed by pesticides (15.2%), alcohol (14.1%), carbon monoxide (12.5%) and food (9.7%). In contrast, the most common agent for FPCC cases was pesticides (38.5%), followed by