Oral Activated Charcoal to Enhance Theophylline Elimination in an Acute Overdose
- Peter Gal, PharmD;
- Aileen Miller, MD;
- Jack D. McCue, MD
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
HEMODIALYSIS1 or charcoal hemoperfusion2 is often thought to be required when patients overdose with a near-lethal quantity of toxic drugs.2 Recently, however, oral charcoal has been investigated as a noninvasive means of enhancing drug removal from the blood,3-8 referred to by Levy3 as "gastrointestinal dialysis." We report a case of theophylline overdose in which oral activated charcoal was used to promote theophylline removal from the body.
Report of a Case A 23-year-old woman complained of symptoms of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, tachycardia, and extreme tremulousness; allegedly she had taken twenty 5-mg tablets of terbutaline sulfate and twenty 200-mg tablets of theophylline (Theo-dur) in a suicide gesture earlier that day. In the emergency room, several theophylline and terbutaline tablets were found in the vomitus. Her serum theophylline concentration at the time of admission was 32.5 mg/L, rising to a peak of 98.7 mg/L shortly thereafter. Eighteen hours
Footnotes
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Reprint requests to Greensboro Area Health Education Center, Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, 1200 N Elm St, Greensboro, NC 27401 (Dr Gal).
