This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on ISI (3)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2001;155:417-418.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

We would like to comment on the article in the April 2000 ARCHIVES about pediatric acetaminophen poisoning.¹ The authors' case definition and ascertainment bias make it difficult to determine the clinical significance and generalizability of the results. We specifically find fault with the heterogenous nature of the study population, the nonstandard definition of acetaminophen hepatic injury, and the method of stratification of data.

Alander et al¹ do not clearly distinguish between adolescents and young children. They stratify overdoses based on whether the overdose was intentional, accidental, or with therapeutic intent. This merely confirms that intentional overdoses occurred in adolescents aged 11 to 17 years and accidental overdoses occurred between the ages of 2 months and 13 years. The spread of ages in the latter group is not shown, but we suspect that it is mainly children younger than 6 years. This method of stratification introduces age as a confounding factor . . . [Full Text of this Article]