Pediatric lead poisoning

Lead (lead) and its compounds are toxic. In addition to metal lead, there are many lead compounds, such as lead monoxide, lead trioxide, and lead dioxide. Because the neurotoxic effects of lead can often cause damage to children's intellectual development before obvious clinical manifestations appear, it is undoubtedly of great practical significance to study and prevent the harm of lead to children in today's society that depends on intellectual competition to survive and develop. . Therefore, research on lead is becoming one of the hot topics in the field of pediatrics. Lead is a neurotoxic heavy metal element that has no physiological effects in the human body, and its ideal blood concentration is zero. However, due to the ubiquitous presence of lead in the environment, most individuals have a certain amount of lead, and the amount of lead in the body exceeding a certain level will cause health hazards. Prior to the 1960s, the knowledge of lead poisoning in children remained in the clinical stage, and the diagnosis of lead poisoning was considered only when convulsions, convulsions, and coma occurred. Subsequent research has found that lead poisoning has been in the body long before clinical symptoms appeared, so the concept of subclinical lead poisoning (subclinical lead poisoning) has been proposed, and this concept has been used to this day. Therefore, unlike the traditional meaning of poisoning, children's lead poisoning does not represent clinical poisoning like organophosphorus poisoning, nitrite poisoning, etc., but indicates that the accumulation of lead in the body (that is, the lead load) is already in danger of harming health Level. In the 1960s, children's blood lead levels below 2.88 μmol / L (60 μg / dl) were considered safe. With the deepening of research, it was previously believed that normal blood lead levels have been proved to be harmful. Until the 1980s, studies showed that when the blood lead level was around 0.48 μmol / L (10 μg / dl), it was not enough to produce Specific clinical manifestations, but have been able to adversely affect children's intellectual development, physical growth, learning ability, and hearing. Based on a large amount of scientific research, the National Center for Diseases Control (CDC) in 1991 established the diagnostic criteria for lead poisoning in children with a blood lead level exceeding 0.48 μmol / L (10 μg / dl), regardless of whether there is a corresponding Clinical manifestations and other blood biochemical changes.

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