RDW a Predictor in OP Poisoning

Abstract

Organophosphorus compound poisoning is a widely common problem in a developing country like Indian and it is a major clinical and public health concern. There have been efforts to find novel tools / markers to assess the prognosis and the use of RDW has been proposed in the OPCs poisoning, where in RDW can be used as a predictor of outcomes in OPCs poisoning. There have been several attempts to find out whether RDW can infact be used as a predictor of outcomes, but almost all of these studies so far have been done on a retrospective study. Hence our objective was to evaluate the association of RDW with the outcome of Organophosphate poisoning Material: The study consisted of 115 patients who were admitted to JSS hospital critical care due to consumption of Organophosphorus compounds. Patients were assessed and Blood investigations like Complete hemogram and Serum Cholinesterase levels collected after Informed consent was taken from the kin of the patients. Detailed History about the circumstances of consumption and the type of poison was collected and on arrival vitals were recorded. Observation: The mean age of the patient's in our study was 36.73 years. Out of the total patients 80% were males and 20% were females. The patients were divided into 3 groups; 1)Discharged without acute complications; 2) Discharged but had complications 3) Death; with 52% patients in group 1 and 27% patients in group 2 and 20.9% were in group 3. The most common complication in the group 2 was respiratory failure. RDW as a predictor for outcomes in Organophosphate compounds has a Sensitivity of 87.5% and specificity of 51.65% with a diagnostic accuracy of 59.13%. But as an independent predictor of mortality it was not significant. Conclusion: RDW can be used as a predictor of outcomes in Organophosphate compound poisoning cases with as RDW was elevated in cases with complications and death and was found to be significant. But as an independent predictor for mortality, it was not significant.