Delayed Neuropathy Due to Organophosphate Insecticide Injection in an Attempt to Commit Suicide

Abstract

Organophosphates (OPs) are commonly used as pesticides throughout the world. Exposures to OPs cause a significant number of poisonings and deaths every year. Organophosphate-induced delayed polyneuropathy is a sensory-motor distal axonopathy which usually occurs after exposure of certain OP insecticides. Neuropathies due to ingestion of OPs have rarely been reported in the literature. Moreover, until now, there is no report of a patient developing organophosphorus injection-induced delayed neuropathy in the literature. We report a patient with serious organophosphorus-induced delayed neuropathy due to malathion injection. The patient was a 32-year-old female who self-injected undetermined amounts of malathion over the median nerve trace on the forearm crease in a suicide attempt which resulted in peripheral neuropathy.