Misdiagnosis and long-term outcome of 13 patients with acute thallium poisoning in China

Abstract

Purpose. To analyze clinical feature and evaluate long-term outcome of patients with thallium poisoning. Materials and methods. An observational series of cases with acute thallium poisoning was analyzed retrospectively in West China Hospital of Sichuan University between 2000 and 2010. The clinical data including symptom, determination of thallium level, treatment, neurophysiological examination, and neuropsychological evaluation were analyzed. The patients were followed up until December 2012. Results. Seven men and six women were enrolled in the study. The median patient age was 37 years (range: 15–53 years). The median duration of hospitalization was 44 days (range: 7–72). All the patients were misdiagnosed initially. One patient died in the hospital. The other 12 patients were followed for a median of 7 years (range: 1–12 years) after discharge from hospital. One patient died from leukemia in the first year of follow-up. Long-term outcome results showed peripheral neuropathy improved substantially. However, many patients have mild or moderate sequelae in sensory nerve fibers of distal lower extremity. A sural nerve biopsy in one patient revealed shrunken axons, distorted myelin sheath, and myelinated fibers loss. During follow-up period, problem of intelligence (4/12 patients, 33%), memory impairment (4/12, 33%), anxiety (6/12, 50%), and depression (5/12, 42%) were demonstrated. Conclusions. Neurological symptoms may lead to misdiagnosis of thallium poisoning. Mild or moderate neurological sequelae may last for a long time after thallium poisoning.

Keywords:

• CNS/Psychological
• Other
• Thallium

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Prof. Yan Zeng and Prof. HongBo Zheng for their helpful comments.

Declaration of interest

Dr. Zhou serves on the editorial advisory boards of Neural Regeneration Research and the Chinese Journal of Neurology; has received research support from the Chinese Ministry of Health, the Chinese Medical Association, and the China Association Against Epilepsy; and has been a commissioner of neurology branch of the Chinese Medical Association. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to report.