EMERGENCY CASEBOOK
Death from paracetamol overdose despite appropriate treatment with N-acetylcysteine
Department of Anaesthesia, Bristol Royal Infirmary, Bristol, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr C Bourdeaux
Department of Anaesthesia, Level 7, Queens Building, Bristol Royal Infirmary, Bristol BS2 8HW, UK; chrisbourdeaux{at}googlemail.com
A case of death from severe paracetamol poisoning which presented early and received appropriate treatment according to evidence-based guidelines is presented here. It is very rare for patients to die from paracetamol poisoning when they receive N-acetylcysteine (NAC) within 8 h of ingestion. The patient had a marked lactic acidosis on presentation to hospital. This case demonstrates that a patient can die from paracetamol poisoning despite early and appropriate treatment, and raises the question whether lactic acidosis in a patient following paracetamol overdose should prompt the initiation of NAC treatment while awaiting paracetamol levels.
Abbreviations: ALT, alanine aminotransferase; NAC, N-acetylcysteine; PT, prothrombin time
Read all eLetters
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
eLetters:
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Read responses to this article
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
