THURSDAY, July 2 (HealthDay News) -- The use of pralidoxime chloride in treating patients who have deliberately consumed organophosphorus insecticide does not appear to improve survival, according to research published in the June issue of PLoS Medicine.

Michael Eddleston, Ph.D., of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, and colleagues analyzed data from 235 teenage and adult patients with organophosphorus insecticide self-poisoning who were treated with atropine and were also randomized to receive saline placebo or pralidoxime at a 2-gram loading dose and continuous infusion for up to seven days.

The researchers found that mortality was actually higher in the pralidoxime group, though the association was not significant. The groups had a similar need for intubation. In addition, pralidoxime did not appear to provide a benefit for poisoning with either of the two most common insecticides, chlorpyrifos or dimethoate.

"Patients with relatively low-dose occupational poisoning by diethyl organophosphorus insecticides have been shown to clinically improve after low-dose pralidoxime administration. However, for self-poisoned patients, we have no consistent clinical trial evidence for the use of this regimen of pralidoxime in organophosphorus insecticide poisoning," the authors conclude. "Our trial provides evidence that routinely following the World Health Organizations recommended high-dose pralidoxime regimen in all patients does not improve survival in organophosphorus insecticide self-poisoned patients."

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