CONCENTRATIONS OF TRICHLOROETHYLENE AND ITS METABOLITES IN BLOOD AND URINE AFTER ACUTE-POISONING BY INGESTION

A 58-year-old man fell into a trichloroethylene reservoir bath head fi rst, during a maintenance degreasing bath and accidentally ingested th e solvent. Although he showed deep coma, chemical burns and pneumonia on admission, these symptoms gradually subsided. The concentrations of trichloroethylene (TRI) and its metabolites, trichloroethanol (TCE) a nd trichloroacetic acid (TCA) in blood and urine were measured during hospitalization. Eight hours after the accident, the concentrations of TRI and its metabolites in serum were 31.4 mu g/ml TRI, 16.5 mu g/ml TCE and 79,5 mu g/ml TCA. The serum TRI concentration decreased to 4.3 mu g/ml on the following day. Elimination of TCE and TCA from serum o ccurred biphasically, the estimated half-lives of each metabolites bei ng about 52.6 and 50.4 h in an initial fast phase and 268.3 and 277.2 h in a subsequent slow phase, respectively. Urinary TRI excretion pers isted for the first 2 days. The urinary TCE and TCA excretions were lo nger than that of TRI with a biphasic decrease and the total amount of TCE excreted during the first 2 days was about two times that of TCA. The half-life of urinary TCE excretion (t(1/2) 25.7 h) was shorter th an that of TCA (t(1/2) 52.1 h) in the fast phase but did no difference during the slow phase, with each half-time being about 166.3 h. The k inetics of TRI metabolites in blood and urine in this case were in sli ght agreement with the results following inhalation exposure previousl y reported in the literature.