Surgical decontamination in ferrous sulfate intoxication

摘要

A 32-year-old woman was transferred to the emergency room after ingestion of 200 tablets of 80 mg ferrous sulfate for suicide. She received gastric lavage 30 minutes after ingestion and activated charcoal before transfer. Most tablets remained inside the stomach on abdominal plain radiography ( ). The initial serum iron level was 326 μg/dl (normal range, 50 to 130 μg/dl), and deferoxamine therapy was started with 15 mg/kg/hr for 24 hours. Emergency endoscopy was performed 15 hours after ingestion. Not all tablets could be removed because of increased bleeding tendency due to black granules covering the gastric mucosa and numerous tangled tablets ( ). At 23 hours after ingestion, she underwent emergency laparotomy, and a total of 114 tablets was removed ( and ). Serum iron level was normalized at the day after surgery.