Epidemiology of ingestions in a regional poison control center over twenty years

This analysis was conducted to demonstrate the pattern and changes of potential intoxications reported to a German regional poison control center from 1974 to 1993. During this period 155,654 calls were reported of which 111,313 were analyzed. The remaining 44,341 were either of minor importance of preventive calls; 56% referred to children and 44% to adults. Substance categories most commonly implicated were drugs, with a yearly average of 37.6% of the total, followed by household articles (31.2%), plants (9.7%) and chemicals (5.9%). In pediatric cases household articles were the most frequent source of ingestion followed by drugs, plants and nutritional substances, whereas in adults drugs were followed by household articles, chemicals and pesticides. Only 13.4% of all ingestions were classified as toxic or very toxic. There were no major changes in the incidences of the different substance categories during the 20 years. However, there were some changes in the pharmaceuticals, probably due to the introduction of new drugs or the withdrawal of the OTC-status of selected drugs.