Review Article A Systematic Review of Ethanol and Fomepizole Use in Toxic Alcohol Ingestions

Copyright © 2013 Lorri Beatty et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objectives. e optimal antidote for the treatment of ethylene glycol or methanol intoxication is not known. e objective of this systematic review is to describe all available data on the use of ethanol and fomepizole formethanol and ethylene glycol intoxication. Data Source. A systematic search ofMEDLINE and EMBASEwas conducted. Study Selection. Published studies involving the use of ethanol or fomepizole, or both, in adults who presentedwithin 72 hours of toxic alcohol ingestionwere included. Our search yielded a total of 145 studies for our analysis. ere were no randomized controlled trials, and no head-to-head trials. Data Extraction. Variables were evaluated for all publications by one independent author using a standardized data collection form. Data Synthesis. 897 patients with toxic alcohol ingestion were identi�ed. 720 (80.3%) were treated with ethanol (505 Me, 215 EG), 146 (16.3%) with fomepizole (81 Me, 65 EG), and 33 (3.7%) with both antidotes (18 Me, 15 EG). Mortality in patients treated with ethanol wa