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Summary Background People over 60 years old represent 4 to 16% of all incidents with button batteries. Significant necrotic lesions can appear as early as 2 hours following ingestion. This can induce esophagus perforation and lead to death. Objective To determine cause of ingestion, clinical manifestations and outcome of button battery ingestion in older people. Methods PilBouTox® was a 2 years prospective observational multicenter cohort study conducted by all French poison control centers for button battery ingestion in people aged 65 and over. After ingestion or insertion, patients were monitored for 21 days. We recorded cause of ingestion, button battery description, clinical manifestations, use of X-ray, endoscopy or surgery, duration of hospitalization and outcome. Results The patient mean age was 85 ± 7 years old with 64% being women. The incidence was 0.27 ingestion/100,000 aged people/year. In 82% of cases, only one battery was ingested. Seventy-six percent of the button batteries ingested came from the hearing aids. Ninety-four percent of patients were asymptomatic but 2 patients died: one unrelated and one potentially related. Three gastric endoscopies were performed, and one found distal esophagus lesion Forrest III. Conclusion With simple precautionary advice, we can prevent 94% of button battery ingestions in older people. We proposed management algorithm for button battery ingestions in older people. Button battery ingestions appeared as an uncommon event. Button batteries ingestions can cause severe esophagus or gastric ulceration. Hearing aid batteries are mostly involved in older people without medical importance. Only one case of esophagus impaction needing endoscopic removal was recorded.

To the Editor,We read with interest the article by McCann et al. “Rising incidence and high mortality in intentional sodium nitrite exposures reported to US poison centers” reporting an increasing ...

Background Poisoning is one of the leading causes of admission to the emergency department and intensive care unit. A large number of epidemiological changes have occurred over the last years such as the exponential growth of new synthetic psychoactive substances. Major progress has also been made in analytical screening and assays, enabling the clinicians to rapidly obtain a definite diagnosis. Methods A committee composed of 30 experts from five scientific societies, the Société de Réanimation de Langue Française (SRLF), the Société Française de Médecine d’Urgence (SFMU), the Société de Toxicologie Clinique (STC), the Société Française de Toxicologie Analytique (SFTA) and the Groupe Francophone de Réanimation et d’Urgences Pédiatriques (GFRUP) evaluated eight fields: (1) severity assessment and initial triage; (2) diagnostic approach and role of toxicological analyses; (3) supportive care; (4) decontamination; (5) elimination enhancement; (6) place of antidotes; (7) specificities related to recreational drug poisoning; and (8) characteristics of cardiotoxicant poisoning. Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome (PICO) questions were reviewed and updated as needed, and evidence profiles were generated. Analysis of the literature and formulation of recommendations were then conducted according to the GRADE® methodology. Results The SRLF-SFMU guideline panel provided 41 statements concerning the management of pharmaceutical and recreational drug poisoning. Ethanol and chemical poisoning were excluded from the scope of these recommendations. After two rounds of discussion and various amendments, a strong consensus was reached for all recommendations. Six of these recommendations had a high level of evidence (GRADE 1±) and six had a low level of evidence (GRADE 2±). Twenty-nine recommendations were in the form of expert opinion recommendations due to the low evidences in the literature. Conclusions The experts reached a substantial consensus for several strong recommendations for optimal management of pharmaceutical and recreational drug poisoning, mainly regarding the conditions and effectiveness of naloxone and N-acetylcystein as antidotes to treat opioid and acetaminophen poisoning, respectively.

Context: Slime is a slow-flowing material with viscoelastic properties which is attractive to children. Its preparation is based on the crosslinking of polyvinyl alcohol, polyvinyl acetate ...

Background: Alcohol use disorders are frequently associated with self-intoxication in attempted suicide. In France since 2008, the off-label use of baclofen for treatment of alcohol dependence has greatly increased, leading to temporary regulation of use of the drug. At the request of the national authorities, the French Poison Control Centers carried out a retrospective survey to give an overview of baclofen exposure in this population.Methods: A retrospective study was carried out from January 2008 to December 2013, focusing on baclofen exposures in alcohol-dependent patients managed by the nine national French Poison Control Centers.Results: 294 observations of baclofen exposures in alcohol-dependent patients were identified in our database. Of these, 220 were suicide attempts by self-poisoning and 74 were unintentional. The mean age of patients was 41.7 years, with a sex-ratio of 1.6. Patients attempting suicide with baclofen were younger than those with unintentional exposures, and 43.6% of t...

A fatality involving verapamil, a calcium channel blocker agent, is presented. A 51-year old male ingested 7200 mg of sustained-release (SR) verapamil at T0 and died 40 hours later of refractory, mixed shock and multiorgan failure. The symptoms displayed during hospitalization were quite typical and involved altered consciousness, hypotension, bradycardia, atrioventricular block, metabolic acidosis and renal failure. Verapamil and its primary metabolite, norverapamil, were assayed on eight plasma and two urine samples, successively taken between the admission to the ICU (T0-4 hours) and time of death, using an original high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS) procedure with verapamil-d3 as internal standard. Plasma verapamil and norverapamil levels on admission were 0.94 and 1.36 mg/mL, respectively, then verapamil remained practically unchanged throughout the hospitalization (0.85 mg/mL at T0-40 hours). The discussion focuses on the detrimental role of SR formulations in overdose, with special emphasis on the risk of pharmacobezoar development already reported with SR-verapamil. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a verapamil fatality documented by repeated plasma measurements of the drug during the antemortem period.

Objectives: To assess (1) the short-term hemodynamic, respiratory and arterial blood gas effects of NIPSV in patients with ACPE who were likely to require endotracheal intubation, (2) the initial causes of failure and (3) the side effects and the difficulties of this technique. Design: Uncontrolled, prospective clinical study. Setting: Teaching hospital intensive care unit. Patients: 26 consecutive patients with severe ACPE. Interventions: Noninvasive ventilation via a face mask, using a pressure support mode (20.5 ± 4.7 cmH2O), with an initial fractional inspired oxygen of 93.0 ± 16 % and a positive end-expiratory pressure of 3.5 ± 2.3 cmH2O. The need to intubate the patients within 48 h was considered as a criterion of failure of the procedure. Measurements and results: Clinical and biological parameters were measured at 15 and 30 minutes, 1 h and 2 h and at 1 h and 2 h, respectively. There were 5 (21 %) failures and 21 (79 %) successes. In both the success and the failure groups, clinical and blood gas parameters improved at the first measure. In the success group, within 15 min of the start of NIPSV, pulse oximetry saturation (SpO2) had increased from 84 ± 12 to 96 ± 4 % (p < 0.001), the respiratory rate (RR) had decreased from 36 ± 5.3 to 22.4 ± 4.9 breaths/min (p < 0.0001) and within 1 h the arterial oxygen tension and pH, respectively, had increased from 61 ± 14 to 270 ± 126 mmHg (p < 0.0001) and from 7.25 ± 0.11 to 7.34 ± 0.07 (p < 0.01) and the arterial carbon dioxide tension (PaCO2) had decreased from 54.2 ± 15 to 43.4 ± 6.4 mmHg (p < 0.01). There were no statistical differences between the success and failure groups for the initial clinical parameters: SpO2, RR, heart rate, mean arterial pressure. The only differences between the success and failure groups were in the PaCO2 (54.2 ± 15 vs 32 ± 2.1 mmHg, p < 0.001) and the creatine kinase (CPK) (176 ± 149 vs 1282 ± 2080 IU/l, p < 0.05); this difference in CPK activity was related to the number of patients who had an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) (4/5 in the failure group vs 2/21 in the success group, p < 0.05). All patients with AMI in the failure group died. Conclusion: Among patients in acute respiratory failure, those with severe ACPE could benefit from NIPSV if they are hypercapnic, but NIPSV should be avoided in those with AMI.

Diagnosis in clinical toxicology is based on the same principles as diagnosis in other fields of medecine. The global diagnostic approach to the poisoned patient is based on the evaluation of the history, the symptomatology, the results of the biomedical investigations and of the toxicological analytical data, and in some cases on therapeutic tests. All these data should correlate with the implicated toxin(s). The exact diagnosis should contribute to the assessment of the prognosis and indicate appropriate treatment which may include symptomatic and supportive measures, decontamination, enhancement of elimination and antidotes. However, a precise diagnosis with the exact knowledge of the toxin is rarely the first priority in an emergency situation. The early management of the poisoned patient comprises a brief examination with the evaluation of the vital signs, and supportive measures if necessary.

Inhalation of nitric oxide (NO) and prone position ventilation (PPV) have been showed to improve the PaO2/FiO2 ratio in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The aim of this study was to identify which of the following treatments (PPV, NO or PPV + NO) improved the PaO2/FiO2 ratio most in a patient. Ten consecutive patients presenting with severe acute respiratory failure (PaO2/FiO2