Immobilization-Related Lead Toxicity in Previously Lead-Poisoned Children

Abstract

In the late 1970s more than half a million children younger than 7 years of age had elevated blood lead concentrations (>1.45 µmol/L, or 30 µg/dL, the clinical cutoff for an elevated lead level at that time.¹ Despite a declining incidence of new cases since then, a large reservoir of previously exposed children must exist. (Sedlis M. 1989. Personal communication). More than two thirds of a child's lead burden is contained in the skeleton.² In one experimental model, a small fraction of the bone lead content is in a readily exchangeable pool with blood and soft tissues.³ The majority of the lead in bone is believed to be metabolically inert in most circumstances.