Mushroom poisonings reported to the Dokuz Eylul University drug and poison information center

Abstract

Objective: Poisonings concerning mushrooms that were reported to Dokuz Eylul University Drug and Poison Information Center (DPIC) between 1993 and 2006 were analyzed.
Methods: Age, sex, mushroom type, route and reason for the poisoning, clinical effects and outcome of the poisoned patients were recorded on standard data forms, then entered into a computerized database program.
Results: Mushroom ingestions accounted 1.2 % (799 cases of 65,176) of all poisonings were reported to DPIC. More than half of the calls to DPIC involved adults (64.8%, 518) and females dominated in adults this is the opposite in children (57.9%, 292 and 47.6%, 100 for adults and children, respectively). Mean age of adults and children were 39.1±0.7 and 9.5±0.4 years, respectively. Most of the poisonings occurred in autumn (49.7%). Median time elapsed from mushroom poisoning to telephone call was 6 h (68.2%, mean 13.5±21.5 h). Type of the mushrooms were classified as suspicious toxic mushrooms (Amanita phalloides etc, 2.9%), other mushrooms (66.7%) and unknown
(30.4%). Mild symptoms were found to be higher in patients who presented to a health facility within in first 6 hours after ingestion than that of patients presented more than six hours after ingestion (p<0.0001). Clinical effects were graded as asymptomatic (7.4%), moderate (6.3%) or severe (2.0%) poisoning. Nausea with vomiting was the most common sign (32.6%) followed by vomiting alone (22.0%), diarrhea (12.5%) and abdominal colic (9.3%). One patients died (0.1%) from unknown wild mushroom ingestion.
Conclusions: Although poisonings concerning mushroom ingestion reported to our DPIC were common, most of them were mild poisonings. Mushroom poisoning cases with late presentation should be evaluated carefully by emergency physicians for deadly poisonous mushroom ingestions.