Pralidoxime treatment and serum cholinesterase levels as predictor of outcome in patients of acute organophosphate poisoning

Objective: to compare the outcome of acute organophosphate poisoning with and without pralidoxime treatment. methods: it is a retrospective study conducted at the department of medicine,department of paediatric medicine and department of pathology bahawal victoria hospital bahawalpur from july 2009 to june 2010. it included 241 patients of acute op poisoning. blood urea,serum creatinine and cholinesterase levels were done. one hundred and ninety six patients were given pralidoxime with atropine and remaining 45 were treated with atropine alone. data was analyzed using spss 17. p value of ≤0.05 was taken as significant. results: majority of patients (60.6%) were between 21-30 years of age. male to female ratio was 2:1. out of total,17(7.0%) patients died. shorter time interval from the onset of op poisoning to the start of treatment (p =0.000) and the use of pralidoxime therapy (0.001) were associated with better patient survival. three out of 13 patients admitted in icu died,all having low serum cholinesterase levels conclusion: it is observed that use of pralidoxime increases the patient survival significantly in acute organophosphate poisoning and low serum cholinesterase has poor prognosis.