Abstract

This case of a patient with chronic fluoride intoxication, extensive osteosclerosis, and fluorotic radiculomyelopathy is believed to be the first reported froni the United States. The development of advanced fluorosis in this patient exposed to drinking vater with less than 4 ppm of fluoride was unusual and with probably a consequence of his excessive water intake.

Prolonged polydipsia may he hazardous to persons who live in areas where the levels of fluoride in drinking water are not those usually associated with significant fluorosis.

Excerpt:

All cases of chronic fluoride intoxication with radiculomyelopathy have been previously reported from India (1, 2). This paper describes a patient with clinical, necropsy, and toxicologic findings of this disorder, whose problem is of special interest because he lived in an area where cases of advanced fluorosis would not be expected.

CASE REPORT

A 64-year-old white male was admitted to the Veterans Administration Hospital, McKinney, Tex., on May 11, 1962, because of severe respiratory distress and semicoma. He had been a complete invalid in a nursing home for a year.

At his first hospitalization at McKinney in 1950 he complained…

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*Original abstract online at https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.7326/0003-4819-63-6-1074

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