Liquid nitrogen ingestion leading to massive pneumoperitoneum without identifiable gastrointestinal perforation.

Background: Liquid nitrogen (LN) ingestion is unusual, but may be encountered by poison centers, emergency physicians, and general surgeons. Unique properties of LN produce a characteristic pattern of injury.

Case Report: A 19-year-old male college student presented to the Emergency Department complaining of abdominal pain and "bloating" after drinking LN.

Initiation of a clinical pharmacology consult service as a formulary management tool.

Establishment of a multidisciplinary clinical pharmacology consult service (CPCS) can be an important adjunct to a successful formulary management system. This article describes the model of a CPCS developed at the University of California Davis Medical Center. The CPCS provides patient-specific consultations, serves a leadership role in directing the medical staff toward hospital-wide drug usage guidelines for high cost pharmaceutical agents, and enforces the P & T Committee adopted criteria on selected high-cost or high risk agents.

Superiority of activated charcoal alone compared with ipecac and activated charcoal in the treatment of acute toxic ingestions.

A prospective, randomized clinical trial compared the clinical effectiveness of syrup of ipecac and activated charcoal to that of activated charcoal alone in the treatment of acute toxic ingestions. Two hundred adult patients with mild to moderate oral overdoses were entered into the trial. Patients receiving only activated charcoal were discharged from the emergency department in significantly (P less than or equal to .