All issues > Volume 30(8); 1987

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1987;30(8):891-900. Published online August 31, 1987.

Paraquat Poisoning.

Soo Yup Lee¹, Jeh Hoon Shin¹, Woo Gill Lee¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Han Yang University Seoul, Korea

Abstract

Paraquat is a widely used herbicide and in human its poisoning induces acute renal failure, hepatic dysfunction, progressive respiratory failure, and oral cavity ulcer etc. with high mortality rate of 30-70%. The authors analyzed twenty-one cases of paraquat poisoning who were admitted at Hanyang University Hospital from May, 1972 to December, 1986 and the results were as followings. 1) Among 21 cases, 11 cases were male and the rest were female, and therefore, sex ratio were 1.6 : 1. All cases were intoxicated by ingestion and cause of ingestion was primarily suicidal attempt (57.1%). 2) The major symptoms and signs were sore throat, oral cavity ulcer, dysphagia, dyspnea, epigas-tric pain or tenderness, jaundice, and nausea or vomiting. 3) The major laboratory abnormalities of most cases were proteinuria, elevations of BUN, creatinine, SGOT, SGPT and serum bilirubin, and lowerings of pH, PaCO2 and PaO2 in arterial blood gas analysis. 4) The mortality rate was 85.7% and main causes of death were respiratory failure (61.5%), acute renal failure (7.7%), and esophageal perforation (7.7%).

Keywords :Paraquat poisoning