J. Med. Toxicol. (2012) 8:192–237 DOI 10.1007/s13181-012-0237-z ANNUAL MEETING ABSTRACTS Annual Meeting Abstracts Published online: 26 May 2012 © American College of Medical Toxicology 2012 The following are the abstracts from the scientific presenta- 2Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Engineering, tions of the 10th Annual Congress of the Asia-Pacific As- University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. sociation of Medical Toxicology (APAMT), which was held 3Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Faculty of in Penang, Malaysia, in November 2011. Clinicians and Allied Health Sciences, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, researchers from over 20 countries attended this meeting, Sri Lanka where more than 110 abstracts were showcased as either oral platform or poster presentations. Introduction: Chronic kidney disease due to unknown ae- Nine young investigators from across the Asia-Pacific tiology (CKD-U) is one of the growing health problems in region were given scholarships to attend the meeting Sri Lanka. About 8,000 diagnosed CKD-U patients are and to present their research as oral presentations. Their enduring treatment in the country largely in the North Cen- talks were mixed in with invited presentations on sub- tral Region (NCR). Ninety percent (90 %) of the patients are jects relevant to Asia, including Chinese and Ayurvedic farmers. medicine toxicity, snake systematics and venom, phar- Objectives: The study is designed to calculate an agricul- macovigilance, two plenary talks by recipients of tural risk index for an individual who lives in high risk areas APAMT Honorary Fellowships, and high-quality clinical of the country. and public health research. Two very successful sympo- Methods and Materials: The study is a case–control study sia were held on fomepizole use and on recreational and 315 CKD-U patients and 321 normal healthy individu- drug use in Asia-Pacific (hosted by American College als were randomly selected from NCR. Age, sex and of Medical Toxicology (ACMT)). The pre-congress fo- agriculture-related risk factors from both patients and con- cused on medical management of pesticide and recrea- trols were collected. Multiple linear regression logistic mod- tional drug poisoning. els were applied to calculate the risk index in terms of The next APAMT congress will be held in Hong Kong at the probability. end of November 2012. More information on this congress Results: The gender of the individual (male or female), age and on previous congresses can be found at http://www.a- category (<45, 45–60 or <60 years), cultivating area (>1 or siatox.org. We encourage members of ACMT to come to <1 ha), exchange of labour (high or low) and protective this meeting to hear about the fascinating toxicology char- measures against agrochemicals (low or high) were consid- acteristic of this region. ered for index calculation. According to the multiple linear regressions logistic models the maximum and minimum risks were calculated as 1.0 and 0.0, respectively. The male individual whose age is greater than 60 years, low exchange Oral Presentations of labour and low protective measures against agrochemi- (1) Agricultural Risk Index for Chronic Kidney Disease cals had the highest risk of getting CKD-U the disease of Unknown Origin disregarding cultivating area (probability00.87). Females with age less than 45 years with high labour exchange and Jayasekara JMKB1, Dissanayake DM1, Gunaratna MDN2, high protective measures had the lowest risk (probability0 Ranasinghe P2, Thilakarathna S3. 0.14) disregarding cultivating area. Conclusion: Thecalculatedriskindexwillbeusefulto 1Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University identify the individuals at risk of developing CKD-U and of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. to implement the preventive strategies for the disease in the J. Med. Toxicol. (2012) 8:192–237 193 high prevalent area. The individuals with age greater than 60 nephritis needs to be investigated further as the epidemio- with sloppy agricultural activities had the maximum possibility logical evidence is in favor of a cyanobacterial toxin. The of getting CKD-U probably due to long-term exposure to the long-term effects and safe levels for DCYN in drinking aetiological agents and risk factors in this area. water and the effect of salinity and high fluoride content of water needs to be studied. (2) Effect of Concentrated Water from Reservoirs of High-Prevalence Area for CKD of Unknown Origin (3) Referral Hospitals Provide Valid Toxicovigilance Signals in Sri Lanka on Mice for Acute Poisoning in Rural Sri Lanka JMKB Jayasekera1, DM Dissananyake1, Palitha Ratnayake2, Lalith Senarathna1,2, Nicholas A Buckley1,4,ShalukaF WWickramasinghe3,YARadella4. Jayamanna1,3, Patrick Kelly2, Michael J Dibley2, Andrew 1Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University H Dawson1,4,5. of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. 1South Asian Clinical Toxicology Research Collaboration, 2Srimavo Bandaranayake Specialized Children Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka. 3National Environmental Toxicology Laboratories, University 2Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Sydney, NSW, Australia. 4Department of Medical Laboratory Science, Faculty of 3Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Allied Health Sciences, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka. 4Professorial Medicine Unit, POW Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia. Introduction: There is threateningly high prevalence of 5Royal Prince Alfred Clinical School, University of Sydney, chronic kidney disease due to tubulointerstitial disease Sidney, NSW, Australia ending as chronic renal failure in the North Central Region of Sri Lanka. The epidemiology of the disease Objective: Rural areas of developing countries bear the burden shows distribution of these patients around the water of acute self-poisoning. Most patients receive treatment from reservoirs and most of them are farmers. peripheral hospitals before being transferred to referral hospi- Objectives: The aim of the study is to find the potential tals. The epidemiology of acute poisoning is important but effects of concentrated water of the reservoirs in the high accurate data collection in such health systems can be difficult. prevalent area by mouse bioassay. We determined which easily collected dataset would be most Methods: Water of Padaviya Reservoir, supplying water to representative of the true acute poisoning epidemiology. a high-disease-prevalent area, was concentrated 15 times by Methods: We prospectively collected data from all acute evaporation, being exposed to sunlight. The test group of poisoned patients admitted to all hospitals in Anuradhapura mice (20) and control group (15) were fed with concentrated district in Sri Lanka from September 2008 to January 2010. reservoir water and water from non-prevalence area, respec- Patients transferred from peripheral to referral hospitals tively. Water samples were analyzed for fluoride, Na+, K+ were identified and linked. The ‘observed’ estimates of (ISE), heavy metals (ICP/mass spectrometry (MS)) and for poisoning that would be found in data collected from pri- cyanobacterial toxins microcystin (liquid chromatography mary hospitals, secondary referral hospitals and ‘all admis- (LC)/PDA) and cylindrospermopsin (LC/MS/MS). sions’ (i.e. double-counting transfers) were compared with Results: Interstitial nephritis was detected in 45 % of test the most accurate data. mice and only 6.5 % of control group (p<0.001). The Findings: There were 3,813 poisoned patients in the dis- analysis of concentrated water samples from Padaviya Res- trict, of these, 3,111 first presented to a peripheral hospital ervoir showed significantly high content of fluoride and then 2,287 (73.5 %) were transferred to referral hospital. (2.25 mg/L), Sodium (225 mg/L; p<0.05) than control Seven hundred two patients directly presented to the referral samples. However, no increased levels of heavy metals were hospitals. There was no substantial difference in the age/ detected. The analysis showed presence of deoxy- gender profile in any dataset. Secondary referral hospital cylindrospermopsin (1.28 μg/L—DCYN) as the predomi- data provided the closest estimate to the true epidemiology nant isomer present over cylindrospermopsin which is for the pattern of poisoning, total fatalities and case fatality unusual. (when compared to primary hospital data and “all admis- Conclusion: The results show the ability of the water of this sions” data that double-counted transfers). reservoir to induce interstitial nephritis that could be due to Conclusions: Epidemiology data of poisoning derived from the high salinity, fluoride, or DCYN. Although present in secondary referral hospitals provided an estimate that was low levels, the possibility DCYN to induce interstitial close to those found with far more labour-intensive methods 194 J. Med. Toxicol. (2012) 8:192–237 using data linkage to track-transferred patients. Such models Objective: Sulphur mustard (SM), also known as mustard have potential in other developing world settings. gas, has been the most widely used chemical weapon. Over 100,000 Iranians were exposed to sulphur mustard during (4) Evaluation of Antidotal Effect of Intravenous Lipid the Iran–Iraq war. SM causes DNA adducts and crosslinks Emulsion in Diazinon-Induced Acute Toxicity and