Impact of coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic on pediatric poisoning in a single emergency department in Korea

Purpose@#This study was performed to investigate the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic-related changes in epidemiological features of pediatric patients with poisoning who visited a local emergency medical center in Incheon, Korea. @*Methods@#We reviewed medical records of the patients (aged ≤ 18 years) who visited the emergency department (ED) from 2015 through 2022 and obtained discharge diagnoses containing "intoxication" or "poisoning," excluding food allergy and game addiction. Time of visit was categorized as pre-pandemic (2015-2019) and pandemic (2020-2022) periods. They were investigated for age, age groups (children [0-9 years] vs. adolescents [10-18 years]), sex, visits during weekend or holiday, exposure-to-ED time, psychiatric history, intentionality, alcohol consumption, substances, therapeutic interventions, and outcomes. The outcomes included need for hospitalization and discharge against medical advice. @*Results@#Among a total of 358 patients with poisoning, 162 (45.3%) visited during the pandemic period, and 220 (61.5%) were adolescents. Compared to the patients who visited during the pre-pandemic period, those who visited during the pandemic period showed significantly higher frequencies of girls (45.9% vs. 81.5%), age of 10-18 years (46.4% vs. 79.6%), intentionality (33.7% vs. 74.7%), alcohol consumption (4.1% vs. 11.7%), need for hospitalization (24.5% vs. 62.3%), and discharge against medical advice (3.1% vs. 25.9%). @*Conclusion@#In the ED, pediatric poisoning became more intentional, female and adolescent-dominant, and severe in their outcomes during the pandemic.

Correlation between hs-CRP and CRP velocity and in-hospital short term prognosis in acute myocardial infarction, which arrived in the ER within 6 hours after symptoms are expressed

Objective@#This study is to measure the high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) value in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients who arrive within 6 hours of the symptom manifestation and see how the resulting value affects the short term prognosis in AMI patients. @*Methods@#This study was conducted on 118 patients who had less than 6 hours of onset-to-door time among 149 patients who were diagnosed with myocardial infarction in emergency room and undergo percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for 2 years from September 2017. The group including main adverse cardiovascular outcomes were compared in the patients according to the blood test figures (hs-CRP on admission [CRP1], CRP velocity [CRPv], post-PCI hs-CRP [CRP2], and CRP difference values [CRP2-1]). @*Results@#In this study, the average of the hs-CRP values of AMI patients arriving within 6 hours of the symptom manifestation was 2.2±2.3 mg/L. CRP velocity that corrected the CRP value to the elapsed time after the onset of symptoms and N-terminal probrain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) appeared to be significantly correlated with the occurrence of main adverse cardiovascular outcomes (P=0.03). @*Conclusion@#The hs-CRP values of AMI patients arrived within 6 hours of the symptom manifestation showed the mean risk group. CRPv and NT-proBNP showed a significant casual relationship with main adverse cardiovascular outcomes.