Strychnine, old still actual poison: description of poisoning cases reported to French Poison Control Centers over the past thirteen years

Abstract

In January 2020, a fatal case of strychnine exposure has been reported to our Poison Control Center (PCC), highlighting that strychnine poisoning is still occurring. This poisoning led us to collect the cases of strychnine poisoning reported to the French PCC. During the last thirteen years, we encountered 94 cases of strychnine poisoning. The circumstance of exposure was mainly suicide attempts. Strychnine blood levels were documented for 11 of the 94 cases. During the period of the study, 15 deaths occurred that led us to consider that strychnine exposure is a rare but serious poisoning.

Keywords:

• Strychnine
• poisoning
• toxicity
• blood level

Acknowledgments

The Authors thank the physicians, nurses, pharmacists, medical secretaries of the French PCCs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).