Investigating the patients who visited The Emergency Medicine Department of İnonu University for latent carbon monoxide poisoning

Objective This study was conducted with the aim of determining latent COHb intoxication in patients who visited the emergency services. Material and Method This prospective and descriptive study was conducted on 2775 adult patients who visited the Emergency Services at the Turgut Özal Medical Center Training and Research Hospital of Malatya İnönü University between the dates 1 January and 31 March 2015. COHb levels of individuals who visited the emergency services with non-specific complaints were measured using a noninvasive multiwave pulse oximeter and a previously prepared form was used to record their parameters of date of visit, age, sex, complaint, history of smoking, state of pregnancy, pulse COHb, blood COHb and blood metHb. Values up 10% in smokers and up 6.6% in non-smokers were recorded as latent COHb intoxication. The data were summarized using means, standard deviations, frequencies, percentage distribution, Spearman correlation, independent samples one-way ANOVA, student's t-test and Mann-Whitney U test. Statistical significance was taken as p<0.05. Findings Among the patients with the mean age of 57.08 ± 19.97, 47.2% were female and 52.8% were male. The ratio of the patients who stated they were smokers was 65.6%. 13.4% of the female patients were pregnant. The top three complaints in the visits were shortness of breath (27.8%), chest pain (25.9%) and stomach ache (18.2%). In the correlation analysis, it was determined that the mean COHb in the arterial blood gas analysis of the patients was 1.44 ± 1.65, and the mean finger COHb was 1.75 ± 1.63, while there was a high-level significant relationship between these levels in the positive direction (r= 0.850, p<0.001). It was found that COHb in the arterial blood gas analysis and finger COHb values were significantly higher in the male patients than in the female patients, in smokers than in non-smokers, and in non-pregnant patients than in pregnant patients (p<0.001). The latent COHb intoxication rate was 1% in the smoker patients, and 0.1% in the non-smoker patients. The complaints of the smoker patients who were found to have latent COHb intoxication were headache (30%), shortness of breath (30%), dizziness (20%), consciousness changes - SVO (10%) and syncope (10%). The complaints of the non-smoker patients who were found to have latent COHb intoxication were dizziness (50%) and shortness of breath (50%). Conclusion As the COHb values in the arterial blood gas analysis made on the patients increased, finger COHb level increased significantly. The COHb values were higher in male patients, smokers and non-pregnant female patients. The latent COHb intoxication rate was 1% in the smoker patients, and 0.1% in the non-smoker patients. Key Words: emergency, emergency services, COHB, latent COHB intoxication