Citation

Finkelstein Y, Hutson JR, Wax PM, Brent J. J. Med. Toxicol. 2012; 8(3): 263-266.

Affiliation

Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, Yaron.Finkelstein@sickkids.ca.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s13181-012-0227-1

PMID

22528591

Abstract

Infant and toddler poisonings are important to capture and may be challenging to manage. We aim to describe the Toxicology Investigators Consortium (ToxIC) Case Registry as a tool for toxico-surveillance of this problem in the United States. Using the ToxIC Case Registry database of the American College of Medical Toxicology, we identified infant and toddler poisonings over a 15-month period between April 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011 reported to the 31 Registry sites. Of 6,810 poisoning cases reported to the ToxIC registry, 248 (3.6 %) involved children younger than 2 years (51 % males). Fifty-four percent were hospital inpatients, 42 % were in the Emergency Department and 4 % were outpatients. Sixty-three percent were symptomatic. The most common ingested compounds were highly toxic-cardiac drugs (16 %), psychotropics (15 %), recreational drugs, alcohols, and controlled narcotic drugs (13 %), analgesics (9 %), and cleaning compounds (7 %). Fourteen percent of cases involved multiple agents. The ToxIC registry is a potentially useful toxico-surveillance tool to identify and trend clinically significant poisonings in young children, and potentially other populations. These data could be used to target specific preventive interventions.

Language: en