Effect of Hemoperfusion on Treatment for Paraquat Poisoning

Lee, Tae Hun; Yang, Seong Wook; Lee, Tae Kwan; Choi, Su Young; Lee, Yong Ung; Lee, Kwang Young

Abstract

Paraquat is a very potent herbicide which causes fatal toxicity when ingested, and there is no specific antidote against it. So it is known that most of the patients who ingested it die of pulmonary fibrosis. We used hemoperfusion(HP) for the treatment against paraquat poisoning from July 1993 till March 1994 and analysed the data using SPSS/PC ver4.0 for chi-square and t-test for mean +/- SD. The results were as follows: 1) A total of 36 paraquat poisoning patients(22 males and 14 females, mean age 48.8 years) visited our hospital, and i8 patients out of 36 received hemoperfusion(total 90 cycles); there were statistically significant differences in ages(41.4 +/- 15.6 year vs 56.2 +/- 15.0 year, p<0.05), but there was no significant difference in the amount of paraquat ingested(59.6 +/- 72.7ml vs 78.6 +/- 83.6ml, p=NS), gastric lavages(13/18 vs 16/18, p=NS), and use of Fuller's earth(8/18 vs 4/18, p=NS) between the patients who received HP and those who did not receive HP. 2) All the patients who did not receive HP died, but 9 patients out of 18 who received HP survived(p<0.005). There was no significant difference in ages(46.8 +/- 9.8 year vs 36.0 +/- 18.8 year, p=NS), amount of paraquat ingested(87.5 +/- 94.2 ml vs 34.8 +/- 36.4 ml, p=NS), gastric lavages(7/9 vs 6/9, p=NS), use of Fuller`s earth(5/9 vs 3/9, p=NS), and interval from the ingestion of paraquat to HP(52.449.9 hr vs 38339.7 hr, p=NS) between patients who died and those who survived, but SCr levels on arrival in expired patients were higher than those in surviving patients(5.0 +/- 3.5mg/dl vs 1.4 +/- 0.6mg/dl, p<0.05). Therefore, this suggests that hemoperfusion is very effective in the treatment of paraquat poisoning, and hemoperfusion is the most important factor in the prognosis of the patients.