Characterizing concentrations of diethylene glycol and suspected metabolites in human serum, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid samples from the Panama DEG mass poisoning

AbstractContext. Diethylene glycol (DEG) mass poisoning is a persistent public health problem. Unfortunately, there are no human biological data on DEG and its suspected metabolites in poisoning. If present and associated with poisoning, the evidence for use of traditional therapies such as fomepizole and/or hemodialysis would be much stronger. Objective. To characterize DEG and its metabolites in stored serum, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) specimens obtained from human DEG poisoning victims enrolled in a 2006 case-control study. Methods. In the 2006 study, biological samples from persons enrolled in a case-control study (42 cases with new-onset, unexplained AKI and 140 age-, sex-, and admission date-matched controls without AKI) were collected and shipped to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta for various analyses and were then frozen in storage. For this study, when sufficient volume of the original specimen remained, the following analytes were quantitatively measured...