Abstract
Lead poisoning is a common occupational health hazard in developing countries. We report the varied clinical presentation, diagnostic and management issues in two adult patients with lead encephalopathy. Both patients worked in a battery manufacturing unit. Both patients presented with seizures and one patient also complained of abdominal colic and vomiting. Both were anemic and a lead line was present. Blood lead level in both the patients was greater than 25 g/dl. Magnetic resonance imaging of brain revealed bilateral symmetric involvement of the thalamus, lentiform nucleus in both patients and also the external capsules, sub-cortical white matter in one patient. All these changes, seen as hyperintensities in T2-weighted images suggested demyelination. They were advised avoidance of further exposure to lead and were treated with anti-epileptics; one patient also received D-penicillamine. They improved well on follow-up. Lead encephalopathy is an uncommon but important manifestation of lead toxicity in adults.
Copyright
Association for Helping Neurosurgical Sick People. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Derivative-Non Commercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit.
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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License, which permits unrestricted reproduction and distribution, for non-commercial purposes only; and use and reproduction, but not distribution, of adapted material for non-commercial purposes only, provided the original work is properly cited.
