Kerosene Poisoning

This retrospective analysis describes the impact of kerosene poisoning in children in a tertiary care hospital in Bangalore.

To investigate the demographics, incidence, and symptomatology of kerosene poisoning admitted in our hospital.

The medical records of all children admitted for hydrocarbon poisoning from 1990 to 2004 (10 years) were reviewed retrospectively. About 104 cases of kerosene poisoning were admitted to St. John's Medical Medical College Hospital-Bangalore. The age, sex, weight, location of incident, type of incident (accidental/suicidal/homicidal), amount consumed, time of consumption, length of hospital stay, clinical symptoms at the time of admission, chest x ray findings, final outcome and cause of death were studied.

97% of the victims were <2 years, 98% of the cases happened at home, average hospital stay was 3 days, 90% of the patients were dispositioned from the emergency medicine department to the department of PICU. If the amount of consumption was above 50 ml the probability of chemical pneumonia was higher. 98% of poisoning was accidental. Most patients consumed kerosene in the daytime. The cause of the incident in most cases was due to storage of kerosene in soft drink bottles. 25% of cases were referred from other hospitals. 10% of patients received gastric lavage in the other hospital and 5 % of the patients were given first aid in their home by induction of vomiting using salt water. The major symptoms during admission were vomiting, diarrhoea, tachypnoea, anaemia, seizures, cough, and cyanosis. 60% of chest x rays showed infiltration. Mortality rate was 3.5%.