Abstract:

Purpose: In this study, we aimed to determine annual and seasonal distribution of cases and affecting factors of the distribution in Cukurova University Hospital, Forensic Toxicology Laboratory. Method: Five-year (up to 2012 from 2008) archives of cases consulted to our forensic toxicology laboratory was investigated and classified according to gender, situation of case, type of poisoning, seasonal distribution, findings were statistically evaluated by SPSS v20.0 software Results: After screening five-year archives using laboratory registration book, we determined that of 608 cases 49.5 % were from emergency medicine, 19.6 % from pediatric, 7.4 % from psychiatry, 4.4 % from neurology, 2.3 % from other units of the hospital, 7.9 % from judicial authorities, 4. 8% from special requests and 6.1% from circumjacent hospitals. 57.9% of the cases are male and 42.1% are female. 87.3% of 608 cases were clinical cases, 7.9% were forensic cases, 4.8% special requests. 95.8% of judicial cases were male and 85.4% were drugs of abuse cases. 28.1% of clinical cases were the carbon monoxide poisoning and 64.3% of the carbon monoxide poisoning cases were female. Conclusion: When five-year data were evaluated, we determine that the number of cases are increasing every year. Males are more than in females. Forensic cases which were mostly drugs of abuse were most commonly seen in male. When our data were investigated together with TUBIM's data belong to 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 (Turkey Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction), the use of drug abuse were seen most commonly in male. Also carbon monoxide poisoning in clinical cases were evaluated and we see that carbon monoxide poisoning in winter was more than in summer due to heating. Women who exposed to carbon monoxide were more than men to be much more at home according to men.

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