Clinical profile and outcome of children with kerosene poisoning in a tertiary care centre: a study from South India

Abstract

Background: Accidental poison ingestion is very common in children. Among this kerosene ingestion is the most common ingested poison by children. Knowledge about complications of kerosene poisoning is important to manage the children. The study is aimed to analyze the demographic and clinical profile along with the Outcome of children admitted with kerosene ingestion.

Methods: This retrospective study was done in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of Government Villupuram Medical College, Villupuram from January 2016 to December 2016. The case records of all children were entered in a pre-structured Proforma and analysed on SPSS 20.0. P value of <0.05 was considered significant.

Results: A total of 116 children were included in the study. There was a male preponderance (61%) with the common age group being affected as 1 to 3 years (88%) and most of the cases were from rural places (94%) during April to June. Cough (62%) was the major symptom followed by breathlessness (51%) and fever (41%). Chest radiology shows right lower lobe infiltrates (45%) as common finding followed by left lower lobe infiltrates (32%) and bilateral lower lobe infiltrates (18%) as least.

Conclusions: The awareness of Kerosene Poisoning could reduce the morbidity and mortality rate as prevention of ingestion is the cure. These substances are not stored properly. Parental education is the hall mark in prevention of all acute Poisoning with due importance of acute Kerosene Poisoning at home.