How to treat lead poisoning in children

  Diversity in the etiology of moderate to severe lead poisoning in children. We found that the etiology of lead poisoning in children is diverse. Some are due to local industrial pollution, such as local lead mining, small battery factories, smelters or various simple home workshops (tin foil workshops or small workshops for manufacturing electric bicycle batteries or car batteries); some are due to pollution of daily necessities, such as this group of hospitalized patients are mainly infants and children, mostly from Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Hubei, etc. After examination, it was found that the skin care products used by these infants and children were red in color. After examination, it was found that the skin care products used by these infants and children were red in color, and after asking about the medical history, it turned out that there was a local custom of using skin care products mixed with red dandan powder for infants and children. The reddan, or lead tetraoxide, has an anti-inflammatory effect and can be used externally to treat skin sores and inflammation quickly, so baby skin care products mixed with trace amounts of reddan powder can effectively get rid of infants’ prickly heat, dermatitis and ringworm, but because infants’ hands and mouths move more, lead powder can be accidentally swallowed into the mouth, causing serious lead poisoning. Some prickly heat powders containing Chinese medicine have a high lead content, and long-term use by infants is also likely to cause lead poisoning.  There was a case of lead poisoning in a child from Zhejiang province due to the long-term use of tin pots at home to contain yellow wine for daily cooking. Tin pot is actually a kind of lead-tin alloy product, and yellow wine is an acidic solution, which will make lead leach out from the container, and the lead content in wine will increase as the lead content of tin pot increases, and the longer the wine is stored and the higher the storage temperature is, the higher the lead content in wine will be. Children with the disease are prone to lead poisoning after consuming lead-contaminated wine dishes.  The age characteristics of lead poisoning in children 1. The diversity of clinical manifestations. The clinical manifestations of lead poisoning in children are usually atypical, lacking specific clinical symptoms, and sometimes can only be judged by blood lead level measurement and pollution sources; there is a certain dose-effect relationship between the effects of lead on each system. In patients with moderate to severe lead poisoning, clinical manifestations of childhood lead poisoning, such as anemia, poor nasality, hyperactivity, impulsiveness, abdominal pain and constipation, are seen, and a few children have non-specific clinical manifestations such as developmental retardation.  2.Diversity of therapeutic effect. Children with moderate to severe lead poisoning generally have clear sources of lead exposure, so the effect of lead detoxification is based on the detection and effective removal of lead exposure sources and the administration of multi-course chelation therapy. However, children have different bone lead stores and individual differences in response to chelating agents, so the efficacy of lead detoxification in children is not the same. The biological metabolic pathway of lead in the body is still unknown, so the mechanism of the diversity of efficacy needs further study.  Precautions for treatment 1. Find and remove the source of lead contamination. Finding and removing the child from the source of lead exposure is the most important step in the treatment of childhood lead poisoning, and exposure to lead while drug lead expulsion will greatly increase the absorption of lead in the stomach and intestines. correct diagnosis and timely environmental intervention to ensure that the child is free from lead exposure before treatment.  2. Prevention and control of toxic side effects of drugs. Because children with moderate to severe lead poisoning often need multiple courses of medication, it is necessary to monitor the toxic side effects of medication, including regular monitoring of liver and kidney functions and urine.  3.Contamination source control, behavior correction and nutrition improvement in the interval of treatment. During the interval of treatment, we should ensure that children are free from lead exposure sources, and correct the bad behavioral habits such as hand-to-mouth movements through health education and behavioral guidance in order to cut off the lead exposure pathway, and at the same time, we should pay attention to giving children iron and zinc supplements and correct nutritional guidance to reduce the absorption of lead in the body as much as possible.