Drugs for mercury poisoning3/24/2024 The patient was given chelation therapy by intravenous EDTA (2 g in 500 ml saline in about 90 min). It revealed a high content of bismuth (0.23 μg/g: reference values ≤ 0.060 μg/g) and mercury (3.2 μg/g reference values ≤ 1.1 μg/g) (Figure 1A). The first hair sample was taken on 3 September 2004. Hair heavy metal concentrations were determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (which guaranteed precision and accuracy of measurements) and were expressed in micrograms per gram (μg/g). About 200 mg of hair samples were obtained, stored in plastic envelopes and transported to the Laboratory of Toxicology (Doctor's Data Inc., St Charles, IL, USA). Samples were collected with scissors from three different areas of the scalp by cutting 1 cm above hair insertion. Hair samples were taken from the occipital and temporal regions of the head. Indeed, we measured the patient plasmatic levels of the reduced and oxidized forms of glutathione (GSH and GSSG, respectively), and the levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) (expressed in Carratelli Units or U CARR). We have also measured, before and after the chelation therapy, the oxidative stress profile of the patient, tacking into account that the levels of endogenous antioxidant systems could improve, as compensatory pathophysiological response to the oxidative damage induced by mercury. Even if the patient was treated with mercurials many years ago, we decided to measure the concentration of heavy metals in his hair samples, having the patient especially neurologic symptoms. the hair is the best biological indicator of mercury specie levels. A recent work suggest that mercury uptake into hair mimics uptake into brain for both organic and inorganic mercury, e.g. Indeed, inorganic mercury is able to pass the blood-brain barrier. have demonstrated that mercury of cinnabar (10 mg/kg/day, through oral application by gavage for 11 consecutive weeks) could be absorbed by gastro-intestinal tract and significantly accumulated in cerebral cortex, cerebellar cortex, liver and kidney. The inorganic form of mercury, as cinnabar, has been shown to possess neurotoxicological effects, when orally administered in mice. On the whole these tests revealed normal levels, with the exception of increased creatinine serum values (1.3 ± 0.7 mg/dL = mean ± SEM, reported in ten different blood tests taken between 19) and a reduced creatinine clearance (63.60 ± 6.2 ml/min). We took the patient's anamnesis, and his past and recent blood tests. The patient has remembered at this time the old mercurial therapy and was addressed by the physician to our centre to perform the chelation therapy. After the challenge, the urine mercury levels were 10 μg/g creatinine. The same physician provoked the mercury "challenge" of the patient, by treating him with disodium edetate (EDTA) (2 g/10 ml, Salf, Brescia, Italy) diluted in 500 ml physiological saline and intravenously administered by slow infusion (about 90 min) and inviting him to collect urine for 12 hours. The samples revealed levels of mercury <4 μg/g creatinine, which represent the normal urine reference range of this metal. The physician collected from the patient some samples of urine and analyzed them for mercury. The physician, by using the bioresonance method (VEGA test) evidenced the presence of elevated levels of mercury in the patient's body. Only more recently (five years ago) the patient was examined by a physician expert in chelation therapy. These and previous symptoms were never attributed to any one specific disease by the internists and neurologists who visited the patient over the course of forty years. In 1984, the patient developed convulsions (3 episodes), and 8 years ago he presented headache, tremors, vertigo (often resulting in falling out of bed during the night), memory loss, anxiety, depression, insomnia, muscular cramps, tachycardia. The patient has been examined by a physician, who found hepatomegaly, whereas the blood tests revealed increased azotemia. Such symptoms recurred about any two years. However, ten years after (in 1974), he developed some symptoms such as shiver, pallor, asthenia, which lasted for 2 weeks, then disappeared. The patient completely recovered from the disease. Contemporarily, the patient was administered with penicillin (he referred the daily dose of 500,000 units, at alternative months, for 12 months). mercurous chloride, Hg 2Cl 2, or cinnabar, e.g. The patient remembered that the treatment (which was performed one time a week for 4 months) consisted in 10 ml intravenous injection of a mercurial solution (possibly calomel, e.g. In 1964 he was subjected to heavy metal (mercurials) therapy to treat a syphilis infection. In September 2004, a 67-year-old Italian man presented to our medical center.
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