Analysis of clinical characteristics and treatment of 197 patients with emergency drug poisoning / 中华急诊医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To analyze the clinical characteristics of acute drug poisoning, and provide better management for poisoned patients in Emergency Department.Methods:We retrospectively enrolled 197 patients diagnosed as acute drug poisoning in Emergency Department of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019. Medical records included age, gender, baseline diseases, medication time, visit time, kinds of drugs, drug concentrations, accompanying symptom, hospitalization duration, treatment, fluid resuscitation and outcomes. The inclusion criteria were as follows: age≥ 14 years old, and met the criteria of acute poisoning. The exclusion criteria were as follows: age<14 years old; incomplete clinical data; pesticide poisoning; toxic gas poisoning; and other non-drug poisoning. All patients were divided into the survival group and death group according to their outcomes at the discharge. Clinical characteristics, laboratory parameters and treatments were compared using the Student’s t test, Mann-Whitney U test, as appropriate. Results:The mean age of all the patients was 38.9±20.4 years. The majority were young patients, accounting for 134 cases (68.0%). The accompanying symptoms included consciousness disturbance (106 cases), dizziness (56 cases), fatigue (38 cases), and nausea and/or vomiting (42 cases). The duration of medication-to-visit time was 0.5-96 h, with an average of 7.17±0.89 h. The types of drugs included 105 (53.2%) sedatives and hypnotics, 73 antipsychotics (37.1%), 17 antibiotics (8.6%), and 20 antipyretic analgesics (10.2%). The Glasgow comascale (GCS) score of patients in the survival group was higher than that of the death group (12.47±3.05 vs 7.60±4.43, P<0.01). In the death group, the alanine aminotransferase, urea nitrogen, creatinine, cardiac troponin I, prothrombin time, activated partial thromboplastin time, plasma fibrinogen and D-dimer were higher than those of the survival group (all P<0.05). One hundred and eighty-seven patients were cured, while 10 patients died. One hundred and fifty-nine patients were treated with gastric lavage, and 23 patients were treated with blood purification. The concentrations of toxic drugs before and after treatment in 134 poisoned patients were compared. The concentration of drugs after treatment was significantly lower than that before treatment. Conclusions:Acute non-pesticide poisoning in Emergency Department is mainly caused by sedatives, hypnotics, antipsychotics, and antipyretics and analgesics. It is important to conduct laboratory examinations for toxic medications to provide better management for poisoned patients. It is necessary to establish a standardized monitoring system and management path for acute drug poisoning.