Plant poisonings in children in the Czech Republic, 1996-2001

Abstract

Ingestion of or exposure to potentially poisonous plants is a relatively common presenting complaint in hospital paediatric departments, especially amongst toddlers. We present a retrospective study conducted to review the hospital admissions following acute childhood poisoning with plants in the Czech Republic over a 6-year period from 1996 to 2001. Six university hospital paediatric departments and two local hospital paediatric departments were involved in the study. Information and complete data on the cases were collected on the basis of all hospital medical records and internal hospital database outcomes. A total of 174 plant exposures were analysed to tabulate the list of top species involved in plant poisonings. The aims were to provide classification according to agent frequency, clinical presentations, severity of symptoms expressed, affected age groups and gender of patients and to evaluate the treatment according to patient outcome. The most frequent ingestions were of thorn apple seeds (14.9%), followed by dumb cane exposures (11.5%) and common yew (9.8%). Thorn apple, dumb cane, golden chain and raw beans caused the most serious symptoms. There were no fatalities reported out of the reviewed medical records. Complete data on plant poisoning in children from all over the territory of the Czech Republic are not available; however, we believe that the frequency of causes and the rank of plant species commonly involved are properly reflected in our study.