Citation

Villanueva Anadón B, Ferrer Dufol A, Civeira Murillo E, Gutiérrez Cía I, Laguna Castrillo M, Cerrada Lamuela E. Med. Intensiva 2002; 26(5): 264-266.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S0210-5691(02)79782-9

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Methanol poisoning is a very infrequent problem but it causes a large morbimortality. It often occurs accidentally when using some industrial products such as antifreezes or solvents. In Spain attempted suicide is the most frequent way of poisoning. We report two fatal cases that present coma and metabolic acidosis (pH < 7) at hospital admission. In both of them the clinic suspicion was made in a late period and no specific treatment was instaured. We want to emphasize the importance of suspecting early this poisoning in the presence of coma and important metabolic acidosis. It is accepted that Methanol toxicity depends on its toxic metabolites. It is frequent that victims of methanol poisoning seem to be inebriated before other symptoms more due to toxic metabolites appear. The latent period reported in literature is very variable (from 1 to 72 hours). This shows us that it may be an early toxicity due to methanol per se.

Language: es

Keywords

adult; antifreeze protein; article; case report; early diagnosis; female; Formate and metabolic acidosis; hospital admission; human; intensive care; metabolic acidosis; metabolite; Methanol; methanol poisoning; morbidity; mortality; occupational exposure; occupational hazard; risk factor; solvent; suicide; treatment planning