Neurológia pre prax 4/2010

Occupapion-related chronic intoxication with technical petrol

Technical gasoline is a mixture of aliphatic and aromatic carbohydrates that is used for cleaning the metal products and components. It enters the human body by inhalation, less often through gastrointestinal and transdermal way. In 55-year old man a chronic intoxication of technical gasoline vapors developed during 10-month exposure. At first some unspecified symptoms occured (headaches, disturbances of concentration), then dyspnea with epigastric pain (he was shortly admitted to department of internal medicine), and lastly as an acute psychotic state (hospitalization in psychiatry). Since then there are outlasting psychiatric symptoms (anxiety, disturbances of thinking, cognitive deficit), neurological signs (extrapyramidal syndrome, tremor), and pathological findings of auxiliary investigations (EEG, VEP, EMG, MRI). An occupational disease was acknowledged.

Keywords: technical gasoline, inhalation of gasoline vapors, dyspnea, acute psychosis, extrapyramidal syndrome.