15 (25.0 )) followed by farmers (n = 12 (20.0 ). Details are given in the Table 3. Among the different treatment approaches majority of the patients 22 (36.7 ) received gastric lavage and 16 (26.7 ) patients received activated charcoal at initial stage of therapy. Among 60, 30 (50.0 ) patients received N-acetylcysteine (NAC), 23 (38.3 ) patients received steroids, furosemide16 (26.7 ), vitaminC15 (25.0 ), cyclophosphamide 13 (21.7 ) and Vitamin E11 (18.3 ). A total of 16 (26.7 ) patients underwent hemodialysis and Table 1: Demographical and clinical characteristics of herbicide poisoningPatient’s demographical characteristics Mean age SD in years Male sex, n ( ) Pesticide exposure Suicidal, n ( ) Prehospitalization period median (IQR) in hours Patient clinical characteristics (n ( )) Vomiting Oral ulcers Throat discomfort Abdominal pain Dysphagia Dyspnea Comorbid illness Psychiatric illness, n ( )SD = Standard deviation, IQR = Interquartile rangeObjectivesIn the present study we aimed to study the demographics of patient, clinical characteristics and treatment pattern for herbicide poisoning in tertiary care hospital.25.38.136 36 (60) 57 (95.0) 3.50 (9.25) 41 (68.3) 19 (31.7) 16 (26.7) 14 (23.3) 10 (16.7) 6 (10.0) 4 (6.7)MATERIALS AND METHODSA retrospective observational study was conducted on patients with herbicide poisoning admitted in emergency ward of tertiary care Hospital in South India between January 2004-2012. Sixty patients were included in the study. A detailed history had been taken from the patient records of medical record section. Demographic characteristics like age, sex, type of exposure, pre-hospitalization period, clinical features, type of compound along with treatment and outcome were obtained from the patient files. These were recorded using standardized data collection forms and were analyzed using SPSS 16.0 package.Table 2: Percentage of different herbicide poisoningHerbicide compound Paraquat Glyphospate Frequency ( ) 47 (78.3) 13 (21.7)RESULTSDuring the study period, 60 patients of Herbicide poisoning were admitted to the emergency ward of tertiary care Hospital in South India. Gender wise distribution showed that majority of them were males which constitute 60 of the study population. There were 36 male and 24 female patients and the male/female ratio was almost 3:2. The median age of the study population was found to be 25.38 9.136 yrs. Majority of poisoning wereTable 3: Occupation and Herbicide poisoningOccupation Student Farmer Coolie Business Others Frequency of poisoning ( ) 15 (25.Luspatercept 0) 12 (20.Tebotelimab 0) 5 (8.PMID:23880095 3) 2 (3.3) 26 (43.3)Toxicology International May-Aug 2014 / Vol-21 / Issue-Cherukuri, et al.: Management of herbicide poisoninghemoperfusion was done only in 4 (6.7 ). The outcome analysis of herbicide poisoning cases admitted during study period, 23 (38.3 ) of them recovered, 37 (61.7 ) of them were expired. Details regarding treatment and outcome are given in Table 4.phosphide.[13] In pesticide poisoning the fatality rate is between 18 and 23 with highest fatality rates in case of paraquat.[14-17] In the present study majority of the herbicide poisonings were due to deliberate self-harm (95 ) with high mortality rate 61.7 . The common clinical features of herbicide poisoning as observed in our study are as follows: Vomiting (68.3 ), oral ulcers (31.7 ), throat discomfort (26.7 ), abdominal pain (23.3 ), dysphagia (16.7 ) and dyspnea (10 ). As per study conducted by Sandhu et al., 2003 the common symptom.
