The Ewha Medical Journal
Ewha Womans University School of Medicine
Case Report

A Case of Lead Poisoning After Ingestion of Herb Pills

Hyun Sook Kim, Kye Nam Kim, Do Yeun Oh, Gil Ja Shin, Woo Hyung Lee
Corresponding author: Woo Hyung Lee. Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, Ewha Womans University, Korea.

Copyright ⓒ 1983. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jul 24, 2015

Abstract

A case of lead poisoning is presented and recent litures are reviewed. A 47-year old male had been admitted to Ewha Womans University Hospital in March 1983 with chief complaints of abdominal colic & distention, nausea and tingling sensation of lower extremities after ingestion of herb pills(HAE GU SIN). Laboratory examinations are as follows; anemia with hypocromic, microcytic, basophilic stippling of erythrocytes in peripheral blood and bone marrow. Blood level of lead was 34.6mcg/dl, urine level of lead was 128.4mcg/L, coproporphyrine and ▵-ALA in 24hours urine were 270.8mcg/L, 19.9mg/L respectively. After treatment with BAL for 1 day, blood level of lead was 30.4mcg/dl, urine level of lead was 2988.6mcg/L, coproporphyrine and ▵-ALA in 24hours urine were increased to 667.2mcg/L, 5.5mg/L respectively and quantitative analysis of herb pills revealed 10% of containing lead.