Antioxidant Therapy of the Paraquat Intoxication

Kwon,  Woon Yong; Jo,  You Hwan; Song,  Hyoung Gon; Kim,  Myoung Chon; Rhee,  Joong Eui; Suh,  Gil Joon; Youn,  Yeo Kyu

J Korean Soc Emerg Med > Volume 12(4); 2001 > Article

Original Article

Journal of The Korean Society of Emergency Medicine 2001;12(4): 475-479.

Antioxidant Therapy of the Paraquat Intoxication

Woon Yong Kwon, You Hwan Jo, Hyoung Gon Song, Myoung Chon Kim, Joong Eui Rhee, Gil Joon Suh, Yeo Kyu Youn

¹Department of Emergency Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Korea. kwy711@hanmail.net
²Department of Emergency Medicine, Kyounghee University Hospital, Korea.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Paraquat causes severe tissue toxicity when ingested, but has no effective treatment modality. We have shown that high dose vitamin C has effective antioxidant activities against the paraquat intoxication in a previous animal experiment. This study was designed to evaluate the effect of antioxidant therapy with high dose vitamin C and vitamin E in human cases of paraquat intoxication.
METHODS:
From August 1999 to August 2001, 19 paraquat intoxication patients who visited the emergency department of the Seoul National University Hospital and the Kyounghee University Hospital were enrolled to this study. They were devided into two groups, a control group(9 patients) and a study group(10 patients). The control group received only conservative managements including gastro-intestinal decontaminati-on. The study group received conservative managements plus the antioxidant therapy which was composed of vitamin C 24 gm/day intravenously and 20 gm/day orally, and vitamin E 1.6 gm/day orally.
RESULTS:
In the study group, 5 of 10 patients(50%) survived, but all patients of the control group died(p=0.003). There were no significant differences in age, sex, and usage of gastric lavage and activated charcoal between the two groups. Difference in ingested amount of paraquat between the two groups could not be analyzed due to the inexact and subjective measuring methods based on patients'histories.
CONCLUSION:
Antioxidant therapy with high dose vitamin C and vitamin E is effective in improving survival rate in paraquat intoxicated patients.

Key words: Antioxidant therapy, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Paraquat intoxication