1, 2-Dichloroethane Poisoning

Abstract

An adolescent drank a few milliliters of a volatile hydrocarbon in the expectation of getting “high.” Despite deceptively few symptoms and signs on admission and sophisticated therapy later, his condition ran a rapid, downhill course and he died after five days. Two prominent clinical features were hypoglycemia and hypercalcemia. At autopsy, the major findings were florid liver necrosis, renal tubular necrosis, and focal adrenal degeneration and necrosis. The pathologic findings are correlated with the clinical features except for hypercalcemia. The reasons for this and many similar tragedies lie not only in personality problems, but also in the failure to provide aεleqyate warning on the product labels.