Abstract
Intoxications due to organophosphate insecticides are common in our country, since agriculture has an important place. Besides the well known acute cholinergic toxicity, these compounds may cause late-onset distal polyneuropathy occurring two to three weeks after the acute exposure. An eight-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl admitted to the hospital with gait disturbances. Beginning 15 and 20 days, respectively, after organophosphate ingestion. Neurologic examination revealed bilateral dropped foot, absent Achilles tendon reflexes and peripheral sensory loss. Electromyography demonstrated motor weighed sensory-motor polyneuropathy with axonal degeneration significant in the distal parts of bilateral lower extremities. Biochemical, radiological findings and magnetic resonance imagings were normal. The two cases were taken under a physiotherapy program. The two cases are presented here since organophosphate poisonings are common in our country, and since late-onset polyneuropathy is not a well known clinical presentation as acute toxicity.
Copyright and license
Copyright © 2003 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.