Assessing the prognostic effects of hematologic indices in mortality of patients with methanol poisoning

Abstract

Abstract Background: methanol poisoning is an important cause of death, especially in countries where alcohol consumption is forbidden by law. Due to unspecific symptoms, diagnosis of this condition is made by a delay; however, having a prognostic tool for predicting the outcome of patients with methanol poisoning would help physicians stratify the risk imposed to each patient. We aimed to evaluate the prognostic effect of hematologic indices in patients with methanol poisoning. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 311 patients with methanol poisoning were evaluated. The hematologic indices of the patients including hemoglobin, mean corpuscular volume, platelets, leukocytes and lactate dehydrogenase levels were extracted from the patient files. The factors were compared in survived and expired patients. The correlation of the hematologic indices and mortality was evaluated using spearman’s correlation test and the ROC curves were drawn. Results: among the 311 patients who entered in our study, the mean age was 32.56±10.672 and 282 patients (90.7%) were male. Fifty-eight patients (18.6%) expired in our study. The expired patients were older, and had higher leukocytes, MCV, and LDH levels. An LDH higher than 381 had a sensitivity and specificity of 93.5% and 55.1%, respectively for mortality due to methanol poisoning. Conclusions: leukocytosis, macrocytosis, and higher serum LDH levels were associated with higher mortality in methanol poisoning, and high LDH had the highest prognostic factor for prediction of death in this condition.