"Extensive" toxicologic research in emergencies: a luxury or a necessity?
Jolivet, P.; Vuille, G.ér.; Kehtari, R.éz.
Revue Medicale de la Suisse Romande 123(4): 235-237
2003
ISSN/ISBN: 0035-3655 PMID: 15088554 Document Number: 558359
The "undiscriminate" toxicological screening is a tool of potentially extraordinary help, allowing not only the identification of unknown and/or presumed substances in the blood or urine, but also enabling to define, the role of toxic products in a given clinical situation. In order to determine the real utility of this screening, we carried out a retrospective analysis covering the totality of these requests in the emergency unit of our hospital over a period of six months. 74 cases were collected and divided into 3 different categories (necessary, optional and useless). Overall, we found that only 28% of the requests were justified.