PORTLAND (AP) – Medical researchers stymied by a lack of data on arsenic say the mass poisoning a year ago at a church will help them rewrite textbooks on toxicology.

The crime that killed one man in New Sweden and critically injured some of the 15 other victims was the biggest case of arsenic poisoning in modern history.

From it, doctors have learned more about how to quickly diagnose arsenic poisoning and about which symptoms predict bad outcomes. They also have data on an experimental drug given to some of the 15 survivors.

They’ve even learned that some types of dentures can be contaminated by arsenic, and must be discarded.

Dr. Marsha Ford, one of the nation’s top arsenic experts, said past research has been based on a case here and there. The poisonings at Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church in the far northern town provided an unprecedently large number of outcomes for researchers to study.

Ford is preparing to add preliminary information from the church poisonings in her chapter on arsenic in the emergency room reference book, “Goldfrank’s Toxicologic Emergencies.”

“It’s going to give us lots of information about presenting signs and symptoms. How did they look when they came into the emergency department? And how did they progress when they were in the hospital?” said Ford, director of the Carolinas Poison Center in Charlotte, N.C.

Doctors and researchers hope to learn more as the patients continue their recoveries. Eventually, researchers plan to publish in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“The more important issues are going to be the longtime complications or outcomes of these patients,” said Dr. Carl Flynn, medical chief at Cary Medical Center in Caribou, which treated most of the patients.

It was at the 65-bed hospital that doctors working with the Northern New England Poison Center began to suspect arsenic poisoning as parishioners flooded the emergency room last April 27. All had drunk tainted coffee during social hour after the service.

Food poisoning typically hits at least one to two hours later, but the churchgoers fell ill right away. Their blood pressures, dangerously low, fit with metal poisoning.

Within 24 hours, with one parishioner dead and several in critical condition, the state health laboratory in Augusta confirmed it was arsenic. The state began shipping antidotes, including some stockpiled at Maine Medical Center after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Arsenic is treated with chelation agents, compounds that bind with the metal and are flushed out with urine.

But there are downsides to two commonly used chelation agents. One requires painful shots directly into muscle and the other is an oral medication that is of little use to a patient who is vomiting.

Health officials searched high and low before finding a California pharmacy that stocked DMPS, a chelation agent available in other countries that can be given intravenously, said Karen Simone, managing director of the Northern New England Poison Center. The drug had to be administered experimentally because it hasn’t been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Comparing the three chelation agents – DMPS, along with the commonly used agents DMSA and BAL – may point to the most effective treatment, Simone said.

The poisonings already have yielded some other practical information. For example, the New Sweden victims who experienced impaired renal function were the ones who fared the worst, with most ending up on life support, Flynn said.

Flynn expects to learn more from how patients fare in the years to come.

The poisonings also demonstrated the value of preparedness, said Dr. Anthony Tomassoni, a toxicologist who is medical director of the Northern New England Poison Center.

After 9-11, the state used grants to buy antidotes for a number of biological and chemical agents. The state was receiving them in Portland and preparing to distribute them across the state.

That foresight meant the state did not have to wait for shipments from Boston or elsewhere once arsenic was confirmed.

“When we look at chemical agents, time is critical. Having what you need on site, or very close to a site, where you need it, is probably the difference between success and failure,” Tomassoni said.