POISONING CASES OF NOXIOUS SUBSTANCES EATEN AS FOOD: A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY AT A TEACHING HOSPITAL IN MALAYSIA

There is limited information regarding the epidemiology of food poisoning in Malaysia as the issue of food poisoning is often perceived as not as huge as compared to other poisoning cases like intoxication by drugs and chemicals. Patients who experience severe food poisoning require hospitalisation, aggressive hydration, and some even require antibiotic treatment. In this study, we aimed to determine an overview of food poisoning cases reported in UMMC. A 10-year retrospective study on the poisoning of other noxious substances eaten as food (ICD10: T62.0-T62.9) in the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) was performed. A total of 23 medical records of patients, admitted from January 2009 to December 2019 were reviewed. The greatest proportion of food poisoning occurred between the ages of 0 and 9 years, with a predominance of the male gender. Malay patients accounted for most food poisoning cases. All cases of poisoning, including a mushroom poisoning case (T62.0), were accidental. The mushroom poisoning case was then carefully reviewed. To conclude, this study revealed that the most common cause involved in the poisoning was unspecified food poisoning, followed by ingestion of poisonous mushroom. Most patients were given symptomatic and supportive treatments. All patients had favourable outcomes and were discharged with full recovery.

The Neurophysiological Impact of Experimentally-Induced Pain on Direct Muscle Spindle Afferent Response: A Scoping Review

Background: Musculoskeletal pain disorders are among the leading causes of years lived with disability worldwide representing a significant burden to society. Studies investigating a “nociceptive-fusimotor” relationship using experimentally-induced pain/noxious stimuli and muscle spindle afferent (MSA) response have been published over several decades. The purpose of this scoping review was to systematically identify and summarize research findings related to the impact of experimentally-induced pain or noxious stimulation on direct MSA discharge/response.Methods: PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Cochrane and Embase were searched from database inception to August 2020. Eligible studies were: (a) published in English; (b) clinical or pre-clinical studies; (c) original data studies; (d) included the investigation of MSA response to experimentally-induced pain or noxious stimulation; (e) included quantification of at least one direct physiological measure associated with MSA activity/response. Two-phase screening procedures were conducted by a pair of independent reviewers and data extracted from eligible studies.Results: The literature search resulted in 195 articles of which 23 met inclusion criteria. Six studies (26%) were classified as clinical and 17 (74%) as pre-clinical. Two clinical studies investigated the effects of sacral dermatome pin-pricking on MSA response, while the remaining 4 studies investigated the effects of tonic muscle and/or skin pain induced by injection/infusion of hypertonic saline into the tibialis anterior muscle or subdermal tissues. In pre-clinical studies, muscle pain was induced by injection of noxious substances or the surgical removal of the meniscus at the knee joint.Conclusion: Clinical studies in awake humans reported that experimentally-induced pain did not affect, or else slightly decreased MSA spontaneous discharge and/or response during weak dorsiflexor muscle contraction, thus failing to support an excitatory nociceptive-fusimotor relationship. However, a majority of pre-clinical studies indicated that ipsilateral and contralateral muscle injection of noxious substances altered MSA resting discharge and/or response to stretch predominately through static fusimotor reflex mechanisms. Methodological differences (use of anesthesia, stretch methodology, etc.) may ultimately be responsible for the discrepancies between clinical and pre-clinical findings. Additional investigative efforts are needed to reconcile these discrepancies and to clearly establish or refute the existence of nociceptive-fusimotor relationship in muscular pain.

Study on the Adsorption Performance of Various Adsorbents on Hazardous and Noxious Substances

Hazardous and noxious substances (HNS) leakage from ship accidents has been one of the major sources of ship pollutions. Due to the varieties of HNS, the complexity of physical and chemical properties, the harmfulness of potential accidents, and the difficulty of accident prevention, HNS leakage could cause huge social and environmental impacts. HNS emergency response methods and technologies are currently in the early and exploring stage. As a big HNS import and export country with the increasing transportation volume, the risk of HNS pollution accidents in the ports has been significantly increasing over the recent years. However, few studies have been conducted regarding the HNS response technology, especially to the adsorption performance of various adsorbents against HNS. Therefore, this study aims to calculate the degree of adsorption of different adsorbents by selecting the representative HNS, which are commonly transported in the volume, for example, benzene, styrene, and vegetable oil. For inert substances with low saturated vapor pressure (vegetable oil and styrene), the degree and rate of adsorption of the investigated materials were found to be inversely proportional to the mass per unit area (area density). Moreover, these investigated adsorbents were shown to exhibit a good adsorption retention rate against inert substances. This study can provide the technical standard to select the most suitable adsorbents for the relevant HNS leakage.

The Mortality Due to External Causes in Ukraine: Lives That Could Be Saved

The article’s objective is to assess the losses of human lives in Ukraine, resulting from the mortality due to external causes (by absolute number, rate and structure), reveal the patterns by gender and age, with distribution by main cause. A comparative analysis of the mortality due to external causes in Ukraine and other countries is made by data on the distribution of deaths by gender, age and cause of death, taken from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, international and national databases. It is shown that the major share of deaths were due to four main causes accounted for more than 68% of all the cases: intentional self-harm (suicides); harm of undetermined intent; accidental poisonings caused by noxious substances; and transport accidents. An essential gender disproportion due to external causes is revealed: the mortality rate of males is 4.7 times higher than females. In Ukraine males account for 80.2% of the total deaths due to external causes (against two thirds, or 64.2%, in EU). The excess of males is the most significant in the causes such as drowning, suicides and accidental poisonings (with more than eight times to six times excess of the respective figure over females). In view of this, the share of deaths due to external causes in the overall structure of mortality was higher for Ukrainian males (8.4%) than for females (2.0%). The rate of sudden mortality (in the age younger than 65) due to external causes of death in Ukraine is 2.5 time higher than in Sweden chosen as a reference country, and thrice higher than in EU until 2004. The majority of deaths due to external causes in Ukraine are concentrated in this age group: nearly 80% in 2019 (against 49% in EU countries). A pressing social problem for modern Ukraine is the excessive mortality due to accidental poisoning and alcohol effects: from the age of 30 years and on, such cases exceed the poisonings caused by noxious substances (the gap being 1.75 times for the total population and more than trice (3.25 times) for the middle age of 45–49 years. Special attention is given to the problem of the increasing rate of deaths classified as “harm with undetermined intent” (which rate in Ukraine is seven times higher than in EU). It raises the need for analysis of the veracity of determined causes of death and quality enhancement of the official statistics for this class of causes in Ukraine, to have better understanding of the real situation and tendencies of change in the epidemiological situation with respect to external causes of mortality.