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Gitaloxin poisoning in a child

par Maes, Viviane ;Hachimi-Idrissi, Said;Corne, Luc;Ramet, José
Référence Intensive care medicine, 22, 12, page (1442-1444)
Publication Publié, 1996

Article révisé par les pairs

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Résumé :

Gitaloxin is a digitalis glycoside used for the same indications as digoxin and digitoxin. The successful outcome for a 2 1/4 -year-old boy who accidentally ingested 3 mg of gitaloxin (100 times the normal therapeutic dose) is reported. At admission the child presented with irregular heart rhythm. He subsequently started vomiting, even after continuous gastric feeding. Only 48 h after ingestion of gitaloxin he became somnolent and developed bradyarrhythmia. The symptoms disappeared 96 h later; the bradyarrhythmia, however, (second-degree atrioventricular block) decreased progressively only after 120 h. The initial clinical presentation of gitaloxin poisoning may be misleading and careful observation in a pediatric intensive care unit is mandatory. A cross-reaction between the fluorescence polarization immunoassay for digitoxin and the radioimmunoassay for gitaloxin was found and was used as a helpful, but rough, estimate of the severity of gitaloxin poisoning, in the absence of a specific measurement of gitaloxin.