2017 Annual Report of the University of Kansas Health System Poison Control Center

Introduction This is the 2017 Annual Report of the University of Kansas Health System Poison Control Center (PCC). The PCC is one of 55 certified poison control centers in the United States and serves the state of Kansas 24-hours a day, 365 days a year. The PCC receives calls from the public, law enforcement, health care professionals, and public health agencies, which are answered by trained and certified specialists in poison information with the immediate availability of medical toxicology back up. All calls to the PCC are recorded electronically in the Toxicall® data management system and uploaded in near real-time to the National Poison Data System (NPDS), which is the data repository for all poison control centers in the United States. Methods All encounters reported to the PCC from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017 were analyzed. Data recorded for each exposure included caller location, age, weight, gender, substance exposed to, nature of exposure, route of exposure, interventions, medical outcome, disposition and location of care. Encounters were classified further as human exposure, animal exposure, confirmed non-exposure, or information call (no exposure reported). Results The PCC logged 21,431 total encounters in 2017, including 20,278 human exposure cases. Cases came from every county in Kansas. Most of the human exposure cases (51.4%, n = 10,430) were female. Approximately 66% (n = 13,418) of human exposures involved a child (defined as age less than 20 years). Most encounters occurred at a residence (94.0%, n = 19,018) and most calls (69.5%, n = 14,090) originated from a residence. Almost all human exposures (n = 19,823) were acute cases (exposures occurring over eight hours or less). Ingestion was the most common route of exposure documented (80.5%, n = 17,466). The most common reported substance in pediatric encounters was cosmetics/personal care products (n = 1,255), followed by household cleaning products (n = 1,251). For adult encounters, analgesics (n = 1,160) and sedatives/hypnotics/antipsychotics (n = 1,127) were the most frequently involved substances. Unintentional exposures were the most common reason for exposures (78.6%, n = 15,947). Most encounters (69.4%, n = 14,073) were managed in a non-health care facility (i.e., a residence). Among human exposures, 14,940 involved exposures to pharmaceutical agents, while 9,896 involved exposure to non-pharmaceuticals. Medical outcomes were 28% (n = 5,741) no effect, 18% (n = 3,693) minor effect, 9% (n = 1,739) moderate effect, and 2% (n = 431) major effect. There were 16 deaths in 2017 reported to the PCC. Number of exposures, calls from health care facilities, cases with moderate or major medical outcomes, and deaths increased in 2017 compared to 2016, despite a decrease in total exposures. Conclusions The results of the 2017 University of Kansas Health System Poison Control annual report demonstrated that the center continues to receive calls from the entire state of Kansas, totaling over 20,000 human exposures per year. While pediatric exposures remain the most common, a trend of increasing number of calls remains from health care facilities and for cases with serious outcomes. The 2017 PCC data reflected current national trends. This report demonstrated the continued importance of the PCC to both the public and health care providers in the state of Kansas

The structure of N(1535) in the aspect of chiral symmetry

The structure of N(1535) is discussed in dynamical and symmetry aspects based on chiral symmetry. We find that the N(1535) in chiral unitary model has implicitly some components other than meson-baryon one. We also discuss the N(1535) in the chiral doublet picture.Comment: 4 pages, no figure, talk given at Workshop on Chiral Symmetry in Hadron and Nuclear Physics: Chiral07, Osaka, Japan, 13-16 Nov 200

η→π0γγ\eta \to \pi^0 \gamma \gamma decay within unitarized chiral perturbation theory

We improve the calculations of the $\eta \to \pi^0 \gamma \gamma$ decay within the context of meson chiral lagrangians. We use a chiral unitary approach for the meson-meson interaction, thus generating the $a_0(980)$ resonance and fixing the longstanding sign ambiguity on its contribution. This also allows us to calculate the loops with one vector meson exchange, thus removing a former source of uncertainty. In addition we ensure the consistency of the approach with other processes. First, by using vector meson dominance couplings normalized to agree with radiative vector meson decays. And, second, by checking the consistency of the calculations with the related $\gamma \gamma \to \pi^0 \eta$ reaction. We find an $\eta \to \pi^0 \gamma \gamma$ decay width of $0.47\pm 0.10$ eV, in clear disagreement with published data but in remarkable agreement with the most recent measurement.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, published versio

The S-wave \Lambda\pi phase shift is not large

We study the strong interaction S-wave \Lambda\pi phase shift in the region of the \Xi mass in the framework of a relativistic chiral unitary approach based on coupled channels. All parameters have been previously determined in a fit to strangeness S= -1 S-wave kaon-nucleon data. We find 0^\circ \le \delta_0 \le 1.1^\circ in agreement with previous chiral perturbation theory calculations (or extensions thereof). We also discuss why a recent coupled channel K-matrix calculation gives a result for \delta_0 that is negative and much bigger in magnitude. We argue why that value should not be trusted.Comment: 3 pages, REVTe

Baryon Resonances

In this talk I show recent results on how many excited baryon resonances appear as systems of one meson and one baryon, or two mesons and one baryon, with the mesons being either pseudoscalar or vectors. Connection with experiment is made including a discussion on old predictions and recent results for the photoproduction of the $\Lambda(1405)$ resonance, as well as the prediction of one $1/2^+$ baryon state around 1920 MeV which might have been seen in the $\gamma p \to K^+ \Lambda$ reaction.Comment: Talk given at the 10th International Conference on Hypernuclear and Strange Particle Physics, Tokai, Japan, Sptember 200

Photo- and Electron-Production of Mesons on Nucleons and Nuclei

In these lectures I will show some results obtained with the chiral unitary approach applied to the photo and electroproduction of mesons. The results for photoproduction of $\eta \pi^0 p$ and $K^0 \pi^0 \Sigma^+$, together with related reactions will be shown, having with common denominator the excitation of the $\Delta(1700)$ resonance which is one of those dynamically generated in the chiral unitary approach. Then I will show results obtained for the $e^+ e^- \to \phi f_0(980)$ reaction which reproduce the bulk of the data except for a pronounced peak, giving support to a new mesonic resonance, X(2175). Results will also be shown for the electromagnetic form factors of the $N^*(1535)$ resonance, also dynamically generated in this approach. Finally, I will show some results on the photoproduction of the $\omega$ in nuclei, showing that present experimental results claiming a shift of the $\omega$ mass in the medium are tied to a particular choice of background and are not conclusive. One the other hand, the same experimental results show unambiguously a huge increase of the $\omega$ width in the nuclear medium.Comment: Lecture at the "International School of Nuclear Physics", 29th Course Quarks in Hadrons and Nuclei, Erice, Italy, September 2007. Note added in Proofs concerning the mixed events technique and other comments on omega productio

Thermal rho and sigma mesons from chiral symmetry and unitarity

We study the temperature evolution of the rho and sigma mass and width, using a unitary chiral approach. The one-loop pion-pion scattering amplitude in Chiral Perturbation Theory at finite temperature is unitarized via the Inverse Amplitude Method. Our results predict a clear increase with T of both the rho and sigma widths. The masses decrease slightly for high T, while the rho-pion-pion coupling increases. The rho behavior seems to be favored by experimental results. In the sigma case, it signals chiral symmetry restoration.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, revtex. References and brief comments added. Final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Unitarized Chiral Perturbation Theory in a finite volume: scalar meson sector

We develop a scheme for the extraction of the properties of the scalar mesons f0(600), f0(980), and a0(980) from lattice QCD data. This scheme is based on a two-channel chiral unitary approach with fully relativistic propagators in a finite volume. In order to discuss the feasibility of finding the mass and width of the scalar resonances, we analyze synthetic lattice data with a fixed error assigned, and show that the framework can be indeed used for an accurate determination of resonance pole positions in the multi-channel scattering.Comment: 15 pages, 17 figure