General Approach to Patients Admitted to The Emergency Department with Poisoning

Abstract

Poisonings are a group of patients that can cause serious mortality and morbidity and are frequently referred to Emergency Departments. Providing an approach to the poisoning phenomenon with predetermined diagnosis and treatment will increase the success rates in treatment. Diagnosing and evaluating poisoned cases in the emergency department at the earliest stage, early decontamination, elimination, and appropriate antidote treatment are life-saving. In this article, it is aimed to compile the general management of poisoning cases admitted to the Emergency Department in line with the current literature.

General Approach to Cases of Drug Intoxication

“…The mechanisms of action of antidotes are the inhibition of toxin formation, activation of toxin-destroying enzyme systems, antibody properties against toxins, interaction with toxic agents at the receptor level, and binding of heavy metals. Common cases of intoxication in the emergency department and the antidotes to be administered are presented in Table 1 (23,24).…”