INTRODUCTION: Recently, there has been a rising interest in the cases of wild mushroom poisonings. There are relatively few publications dealing with the demographic aspects of the patients experiencing intoxications after wild mushroom consumption at regional level.
AIM: Our purpose was to retrospectively analyze some demographic characteristics of the patients with acute wild mushroom poisonings in the region of Varna, Bulgaria.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed an epidemiological investigation of all consecutive patients with acute wild mushroom intoxications in the region of Varna hospitalized in the Clinic of Toxicology, Naval Hospital of Varna during the period between January 2005 and December 2022. There were a total of 672 hospitalized patients, 330 males aged between three and 84 years and 342 females aged between four and 85 years. We analyzed their annual dynamics during these 18 years and identified numerous gender and age differences in this contingent.
RESULTS: The number of the male, female and all the patients considerably diminished during the second nine-year period—from 191 down to 139, from 212 down to 130, and from 403 down to 269, respectively. The mean patients’ age was highest in 2016 and in 2015 and lowest in 2011 and in 2008. There were 33 cases with two family members, ten cases with three family members, three cases with four family members, and one case with five family members among the hospitalized patients in a total of 12 years. There were no lethal cases.
CONCLUSION: There were considerable differences in terms of age and gender characteristics of the patients hospitalized for acute wild mushroom intoxications in the region of Varna during the period between 2005 and 2022.
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