2005 North American Congress of Clinical Toxicology Annual Meeting, Florida, United States Of America, 9 - 14 September 2005, vol.43, no.1, pp.705
Background: Poisonings concerning analgesics that were reported to Drug and Poison Information Center (DPIC), in Izmir
between 1993 and 2004 was analyzed in our retrospective study. Methods: Age, sex, analgesic type, route and reason for the
exposure, clinical effects and outcome of the poisoned patients were recorded on standart data forms, then entered into a
computerized database program. The severity of clinical manifestations were graded and assessed according to the EAPCCT/
IPCS Poisoning Severity Score. Statistical analysis was performed by using the chi-squre test. Result: The DPIC recorded
55,962 poisoning calls, 48,654 (86.9%) of them related to medicines. Analgesics accounted 16.3% (7,939 cases) of all medicinerelated poisonings. More than half of the calls involved adults (55.9%, 4,440) and females dominated both in adults and in
children (70.3%, 5,578). Mean age of adults and children were 27.7±0.1 and 10.6±0.1 years, respectively. The most involved
analgesics were paracetamol (47.9%), propionic acid derivatives (16.1%), salicylates (13.7%) and acetic acid derivatives
(10.3%). Combined agents accounted of more than one third of the poisonings (37.5%). Most of the poisonings were intentional
(75.1%), especially in 19–29 age group of adults (p<0.001) and 13–18 age group of children (p<0.0001). At the time of
telephone inquiry, 84.4% of the patients had no symtoms of toxicity. Clinical effects were graded as (14.0%) mild, (1.0%)
moderate or (0.5%) severe poisoning. Observation alone was recommended in 63.2% of cases. Gastric lavage (0.9%) activated
charcoal (15.6%) and gastric lavage with activated charcoal (11.5%) were other recommended gastrointestinal decontamination
methods. Five patients died (1.6%) from paracetamol and/or salicylate ingestion. Conclusion: Although poisonings
concerning analgesic ingestion reported to our DPIC were common, most of them were asymptomatic or mild. DPICs have
an important role for the management and referral of these analgesic ingestions without invasive treatment modalities.