Cadmium (Cd) in blood (chromatography)
Cadmium is widely used in engineering, metallurgy, production of inorganic dyes, electrodes, batteries, and accumulators:
It can be released into the environment from steel mills, during the incineration of various waste products, during welding and the manufacture of plastics. High concentrations of this metal are found in tobacco smoke. In addition, cadmium is one of the products of radioactive decay. They are more often poisoned when working under the conditions of industrial exposure to its vapors or inorganic compounds. Organic compounds of cadmium can enter the body with food at industrial pollution of the environment, when from the soil trace element gets into various vegetables, cereals.
The first signs of acute intoxication with cadmium vapor is usually irritation of the pharynx, damage to the nasal mucosa:
Later, there is general weakness, pain when breathing, shortness of breath, severe cough, nausea, vomiting, cyanosis, body temperature rises to 38-39 °C, heart rate increases. Acute cadmium vapor poisoning leads to pneumonia, pulmonary edema, and chronic poisoning leads to pulmonary fibrosis.
With excessive intake of cadmium into the gastrointestinal tract, intoxication proceeds according to the type of severe gastroenteritis:
Nausea, vomiting, salivation, spastic abdominal pain, diarrhea develop. Chronic intoxication leads to impaired renal function, anemia, respiratory failure, osteomalacia, hypertension, chronic rhinitis, pharyngitis, loss of sense of smell, ulceration of the nasal septum.
When kidney damage (cadmium nephropathy) develops gradually over several years, the prognosis is unfavorable:
At a cadmium dose of more than 350 mg, death may occur due to shock, acute kidney and cardiopulmonary failure.