Clinical features and prognosis of paraquat poisoning in French Guiana: A review of 62 cases.

Paraquat is a nonselective contact herbicide of great toxicological importance, being associated with high mortality rates. Because of its high toxicity, the European Union withdrew it from its market in 2007. The aim of this study is to analyze all cases of paraquat poisoning hospitalized in French Guiana in order to assess their incidence and main characteristics.Medical records of all paraquat intoxicated patients hospitalized from 2008 until 2015 were reviewed in this retrospective study.Demographics, clinical presentation, and laboratory data were evaluated.A total of 62 cases were reviewed. The incidence of paraquat poisoning was 3.8/100,000 inhabitants/year. There were 44 adults and 18 children younger than 16 years of age. The median ages were 31 years [18.08-75.25] in adults and 13.4 years [0.75-15.08] in children, respectively. The median duration of hospitalization was longer in children [15.5 days (1-24)] than in adults [2 days (1-30)], P < .01. The majority of cases was due to self-poisoning (84%).Children had ingested a lower quantity of paraquat [48.8 mg/kg (10-571.1)] than adults [595.8 mg/kg (6-3636.4), P = .03]. There were more deaths among adults (65%) than in children (22%), P = .004. The severity and outcome was determined primarily by the amount of paraquat ingested.In conclusion, French Guiana has the largest cohort of paraquat poisonings in the European Union. The major factor affecting the prognosis of patients was the ingested amount of paraquat. The administration of activated charcoal or Pemba, in situ, within the first hour after ingestion of paraquat is essential.

[Fatal aorto-esophageal fistula due to accidental ingestion of button battery. Algorithm for management of disk-battery ingestion in patients younger than 6 years old]. / Ingestion d'une pile bouton compliquée d'une fistule œso-aortique fatale. Proposition d'un algorithme de prise en charge chez l'enfant de moins de 6ans.

The ingestion of disc battery is a common problem in children and current treatment may be sometime inadequate. Ingested button batteries have the potential to cause significant morbidity and mortality. Ingestion of button batteries has been seen with increasing frequency over the last decade, particularly for children aged younger than 6 years. If most cases of disc battery ingestion run uneventful courses, however, harmful outcomes are more common with ingestion of lithium batteries (3V) with a diameter greater than or equal to 16 mm. These young children have to benefit from a chest radiograph within 2hours which follow the ingestion. If the battery impacts in the esophagus, emergency endoscopic management is necessary. We report the case of one young child died followed an unknown lithium disk-battery ingestion complicated with an aorto-œsophageal fistula. We propose a protocol of specific coverage for patients aged younger than 6 years old.

Development of a new categorization system for pesticides exposure to support harmonized reporting between EU Member States.

OBJECTIVES: European legislation requires reporting from Member States on acute poisoning incidents involving pesticides. However, standard rules for data collection and reporting have not yet been set out. The new categorization system presented in this paper is aimed at enabling Member States to gather comparable data and provide standard reporting on pesticide poisoning exposures. MATERIALS AND METHODS: European Regulations providing separate official categorization of biocidal and plant protection pesticides, were used as a basis to build up a unified pesticide categorization and coding system. Data on selected pesticide exposures collected by Poison Control Centres in six EU countries were reviewed, categorized and reported according to the proposed system. RESULTS: The resulting pesticide categorization system has two dimensions. The first part identifies the main category of use, i.e. biocide/plant protection pesticide/unknown, and the secondary category of use, e.g. Rodenticides, Insecticides and acaricides. The second part of the system is organized into two levels: level one identifies chemical grouping, e.g. Coumarins, Pyrethrins/pyrethroids, while level two identifies the active compound by using its Chemical Abstract Service Registry Number. The system was used to provide a unified categorization to compare exposures to plant protection and biocidal Rodenticides and Pyrethrins/pyrethroids Insecticides and acaricides identified by six EU member states. CONCLUSION: The developed pesticide categorization system was successfully applied to data extracted from different databases and was able to make the required information comparable. The data reported filling in common templates containing a pre-ordinate list of active compounds categorized according the proposed system, highlighted different capabilities in data collection and recording, showing that some of the collaborating centres were not able to distinguish between main categories of pesticide products or provide information on active compounds. The results indicate that a special effort should be dedicated to support detailed data recording at national level. Providing common tools to systematically report to the EU Commission hazardous exposures to pesticides, as well as to other selected categories of products, could allow for data comparability between Member States and greatly improve post marketing surveillance and alerting systems in Europe.

[A 25-year study (1983-2008) of children's health outcomes after hyperbaric oxygen therapy for carbon monoxide poisoning in utero]. / Devenir des enfants intoxiqués au monoxyde de carbone en période foetale et traités par oxygéno- thérapie hyperbare--etude d'une cohorte constituée sur 25 ans de 1983 a 2008.

Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning during pregnancy can be fatal for the fetus, or cause bone malformations or encephalopathy, depending on the stage of pregnancy at which the poisoning occurs. Fewer cases of death and encephalopathy have been reported since the adoption of maternal hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy in this setting, but these children's long-term psychomotor development and growth remains to be documented. A prospective single-center cohort study spanning 25 years (1983 - 2008) included all pregnant women living in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France who received HBO for CO poisoning and who gave birth to a living child. A descriptive analysis of the women and children was performed first. A control group of children was created by matching with anonymous files from local authorities. The results of the children's compulsory health & development assessments were used to compare the two groups. 406 women were included in the study, of whom 6 were expecting twins. The psychomotor development of 412 children was monitored, up to the day 8 assessments in 388 cases, the year 2 assessments in 276 cases, and the year 6 assessments in 232 cases. Sixty children have not yet reached the age of 6 years. No significant differences in psychomotor or height/weight criteria (p > 0.05 for both) were found between the exposed and unexposed children. No malformations were reported. These findings support the use of HBO therapy for all expectant mothers exposed to CO poisoning. No specific follow-up of the children is necessary if their neonatal status is normal.

Mass lead intoxication from informal used lead-acid battery recycling in dakar, senegal.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Between November 2007 and March 2008, 18 children died from a rapidly progressive central nervous system disease of unexplained origin in a community involved in the recycling of used lead-acid batteries (ULAB) in the suburbs of Dakar, Senegal. We investigated the cause of these deaths. METHODS: Because autopsies were not possible, the investigation centered on clinical and laboratory assessments performed on 32 siblings of deceased children and 23 mothers and on 18 children and 8 adults living in the same area, complemented by environmental health investigations. RESULTS: All 81 individuals investigated were poisoned with lead, some of them severely. The blood lead level of the 50 children tested ranged from 39.8 to 613.9 microg/dL with a mean of 129.5 microg/dL. Seventeen children showed severe neurologic features of toxicity. Homes and soil in surrounding areas were heavily contaminated with lead (indoors, up to 14,000 mg/kg; outdoors, up to 302,000 mg/kg) as a result of informal ULAB recycling. CONCLUSIONS: Our investigations revealed a mass lead intoxication that occurred through inhalation and ingestion of soil and dust heavily contaminated with lead as a result of informal and unsafe ULAB recycling. Circumstantial evidence suggested that most or all of the 18 deaths were due to encephalopathy resulting from severe lead intoxication. Findings also suggest that most habitants of the contaminated area, estimated at 950, are also likely to be poisoned. This highlights the severe health risks posed by informal ULAB recycling, in particular in developing countries, and emphasizes the need to strengthen national and international efforts to address this global public health problem.

Oxygen therapy for CO poisoning: rationale and recommendations.

CO poisoning remains a serious public health problem. Oxygen is the basis of its treatment and HBO has been proven more effective to prevent cognitive sequelae than NBO. Most commonly accepted criteria for HBO treatment are: comatose patient, loss of consciousness, neuropsychological and cardiac symptoms and pregnancy. However, patients not requiring HBO, have to be treated by a correct NBO regimen.

The role of poison control centres in the protection of public health: changes and perspective.

After the World War II, poison centres (PC) were created with the goal of improving the care of poisoned patients and prevention. Four decades later, they are still recognised for their traditional activities, but they are faced to new challenges. The development of numerous toxicological databases on CDROM or on the Internet has changed the needs of health professionals to call a PC, reducing the number of enquiries but increasing the need of expertise. The general concern about the cost-effective utilisation of the scarce health care resources will enhance the role of PCs in the reduction of unnecessary referral to emergency departments. Health authorities require the implementation of continuous surveillance system of chemical-related events and a real-time alerting procedure concerning terrorism attacks, child health and other serious events. But, to be able to achieve these new roles, PCs need to change the way they collect, validate, and analyse the information from cases and they must develop real-time capacity of detecting an unusual event. It has been recognised that PCs were in a unique position to monitor patterns, incidence and severity of exposures and to detect new trends. They could contribute to the accuracy of risk assessment documentation and help to identify the priority list of chemicals that need to be assessed or reassessed. But, in the perspective of using PCs' data for global risk assessment and public health, the main challenge is the development of international harmonization of human poisoning data collection to allow their comparability. In the future, PCs will continue to have a leading role to play in the health protection of the population. Therefore, of particular importance is their mobilisation to stabilise the traditional activities, to initiate new activities, to acquire new skills in toxicology, methodology and quality assurance, to recruit and to train new staff and to find adequate funding to sustain and expand their operations.

Pregnancy outcome after exposure to ranitidine and other H2-blockers. A collaborative study of the European Network of Teratology Information Services.

BACKGROUND: Published data on pregnancy outcome after exposure to H2-blockers is scarce. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the data collected by the memberships of the European Network of Teratology Information Services (ENTIS). METHODS: The patients were pregnant women who or whose doctor or midwife did contact a Teratology Information Service for risk assessment after the use of a H2-blocker in pregnancy. The data were prospectively collected, i.e. before the outcome of pregnancy was known. Standardized procedures for data collection were used by each centre. The data of the exposed women were compared to those of a control group exposed to non-teratogenic substances. RESULTS: Data on the outcome of 553 pregnancies with exposure to an H2-blocker were evaluated (ranitidine n=335; cimetidine n=113, famotidine n=75; nizatidine n=15, roxatidine n=15). Most of them had been exposed at least in the first trimester. The incidence of premature deliveries was higher in the exposed group compared to the control group. There was no increase in the incidence of major malformations. Two pregnancies with maternal use of famotidine in early pregnancy were terminated after the prenatal diagnosis of a neural tube defect. CONCLUSION: There is no indication for an increased risk of major malformations after the use of H2-blockers during pregnancy.

[Acute dystonia from metoclopramide in children]. / Dystonies aiguës au métoclopramide chez l'enfant.

A retrospective study (1995-2000) of reports of cases of metoclopramide poisoning collected at the Lille poison control centre (184 phone calls) shows the frequent occurrence of acute dystonia in children (81 cases). These spectacular extrapyramidal symptoms consist of abnormal movements (31 cases), local hypertonia (30 cases), acute dyskinesia (17 cases), general hypertonia (16 cases) and oculogyric crisis (13 cases). There is no dose-effect correlation and sex has no influence on the occurrence of neurological symptoms. Medical management is simple surveillance or symptomatic therapy (a sedative drug and/or anti-parkinsonian therapy and/or a gastrointestinal adsorbent). Hospitalisation was needed in only 9.1% of cases. Providing better information to physicians about metoclopramide adverse effects and their medical management should allow a reduction in the number of unnecessary hospitalizations.

Poisons in the air: a cause of chronic disease in children.

Children represent the largest subpopulation of those susceptible to the adverse effects of air pollution. Compared to adults, children express a greater vulnerability, which can be explained by differences in: the circumstances of exposure related to age, their activities, their child status, differences in lung anatomy and physiology, differences in the clinical expression of disease, and their organ maturity. Many factors have to be assessed in order to evaluate the severity of toxic exposures: pollutant solubility, particle size, concentration, reactivity of pollutants, and pattern of ventilation. Within the numerous air pollutants, some are of special concern for children. For example, ozone has been shown to affect the lungs of healthy school children, especially asthmatics. Airborne particles, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and acid aerosols have also been shown to induce acute respiratory symptoms, asthma, and bronchitis. Of particular importance is carbon monoxide, which, under certain circumstances, may be found in highly toxic concentrations indoors where children spend most of their time. Special attention has to be given to children's unique differences in order to evaluate the clinical consequences of their toxic exposures. This circumstance emphasizes the key roles of poison centers, clinical toxicologists, and pediatricians, all of whom can collaborate on the identification, assessment, and surveillance of toxic risk for child health and development.