ISSN:
1437-1596
Keywords:
Key words Toxicology
;
Paraquat
;
Plasma or serum
;
concentration
;
Survival times
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Medicine
,
Law
Notes:
Abstract We describe here fatal levels of paraquat in plasma of victims due to the ingestion of the herbicide, paraquat, and the relationship between those levels and survival times after ingestion. We determined paraquat levels in plasma of 106 paraquat poisoning cases in Korea between June 1992 and December 1996 using a visible spectrophotometric method based on the alkali-dithionite reaction. Among 55 cases with known survival times, plasma paraquat levels of victims who died within one day of ingestion ranged from 2.3 to 636.6 μg/ml (average 127.6 μg/ml) while those of the victims who died between 1∼4 days ranged from 0.9 to 25.1 μg/ml (average 7.0 μg/ml). Since preparations containing 24.5% paraquat dichloride are still used in Korea, our data for Korean victims who died within one day were 8.5 times higher than those in Baselt and Cravey’s report for the same survival times. Our data also suggest that victims in whom a plasma paraquat concentration of more than 30 μg/ml was detected are likely to have died within 24 h after ingestion.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s004140050233
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