1Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, IRAN
2Department of Emergency Medicine, Kerman University of Medical Sciences,Kerman, IRAN
3Modeling in Health Research Center, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of medical sciences, Kerman, IRAN
Since paraquat poisoning has a high mortality rate, determining the prognosis of the affected patients is of great importance. Although the gastrointestinal symptoms are the first and most common symptoms of paraquat poisoning, due to limited and contradictory studies, but the prognostic value of these symptoms and endoscopy has remained unclear.
In this cross-sectional study, patients who were over 16 years old and suffering from paraquat poisoning were referred to the hospital in first 24 hours of poisoning and underwent endoscopy. These patients were investigated during five years. The hospital mortality rate was considered as the criterion for the evaluation of the patients’ results.
A total of 78 paraquat-poisoned patients were included in the study. The hospital mortality rate was observed to be 23.10%. According to the gastrointestinal endoscopic findings, the highest extent of the injury was Grade IV, which was observed in 44 patients (56.41%) and the most severe injury was Grade II-a, which was seen in 36 patients (46.15%). There was no significant relationship between the hospital mortality rate and the endoscopy findings in terms of neither the extent nor the severity of the injury.
Although the gastrointestinal system injury is first and the most common organic injury among the paraquat-poisoned patients, but gastrointestinal complications beside endoscopic findings have no prognostic value in determining the rate of hospital mortality. The amount of ingested toxin has significant values for predicting the mortality rate of the paraquat poisoned patients.
Paraquat, Prognosis, Hospital mortality, Endoscopy, Gastrointestinal
