title: Outcomes of patients with rodenticide poisoning at a far east poison center.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Rodenticide poisoning remains a major public health problem in Asian countries. Nevertheless, very few data are available in world literature regarding the outcomes of these patients. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical outcomes of rodenticide poisonings in our hospital and to compare these data with published reports from other international poison centers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We retrospectively examined the records of 20 patients with rodenticide poisoning (8 brodifacoum, 12 bromadiolone) who were referred to Chang Gung Memorial Hospital between 2000 and 2011. It was found that most of the rodenticide patients were middle-aged adults. Both genders were equally affected and many patients had a past history of major depressive disorder or schizophrenia. Nevertheless, patients with bromadiolone were referred significantly sooner than patients with brodifacoum poisoning (0.1 ± 0.1 versus 5.5 ± 10.5, P < 0.001). Furthermore, it was found that patients with brodifacoum suffered higher incidences of ecchymosis (50.0% versus 0%, P = 0.006) and hematuria (50.0% versus 0%, P = 0.006) than patients with bromadiolone poisoning. Laboratory analysis also demonstrated a poorer hemostatic profile of patients with brodifacoum [prothrombin time (PT), international normalized ratio (INR), 4.3 ± 4.8 versus 1.0 ± 0.1, P = 0.032; PT prolongation, 50.0% versus 0%, P = 0.006; activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) prolongation, 50.0% versus 0%, P = 0.006] than patients with bromadiolone poisoning. At the end of analysis, no patient died of the poisoning.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The favorable outcome (zero mortality rate) is comparable to the published reports from other international poison centers. Further studies are warranted.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nephrology and Division of Clinical Toxicology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, 199 Tung Hwa North Road, Taipei, 105 Taiwan ; College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Hsin-Ying
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Ja-Liang
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Jen-Fen
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.forename: Jui-Hsiang
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Shou-Hsuan
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Cheng-Hao
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Weng
authors.forename: Wen-Hung
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Kuan-Hsing
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ching-Wei
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Hsu
authors.forename: Tzung-Hai
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Yen
keywords: Brodifacoum; Bromadiolone; Poisoning; Rodenticide; Superwarfarin; Vitamin K1