Citation

De Leacy EA, Moxon LN, Ellis VM, Van Dongen JM, Johnson LP, Doddrell DM, Cowley DM. Pathology 1995; 27(3): 273-276.

Affiliation

Pathology Department, Mater Misericordiae Hospital, South Brisbane, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

8532395

Abstract

We describe a case of 2 siblings aged 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 yrs accidentally poisoned by ethylene glycol ingestion. We found estimating the level of ethylene glycol in plasma by calculation of osmolar gap too insensitive to be of value and advocate the availability of a specific method. In our study only one of the 2 children had a toxic level of ethylene glycol but assay by conventional assay and by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1HMRS) of toxic metabolites viz glycolate, glyoxylate and oxalate showed both to be excreting grossly elevated levels. This indicates the desirability of assaying the toxic metabolites of the glycol as well as the parent compound in assessing ingestions.

Language: en