Brain-Aluminium Concentration in Dialysis Encephalopathy

Determination of Aluminium in Human Tissues by Flameless Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy and Comparison of Reference Values

“…In contrast, the aluminium levels in the white and grey matter of the control subjects are not significantly different. This is in agreement with the results of Alfrey et all and McDermott et al 2 From the results in Table 1 it can be seen that the coefficients of variation for tissue aluminium are between 5 and 22% for the patient values. The mean coefficients of variation for the controls are: grey matter 32%, white matter 16%, spinal cord 17%, kidney 9%, heart 19%, vertebral cortex 35%, vertebral trabeculae 18%.…”

“…Comparing the reference values in Table 2, it can easily be seen that our results are in good agreement with those of Alfrey et all and with those of McDermott et al 2 • 3 Although other authors": " also used flameless AAS they found higher aluminium levels for bone; this may be due to a more complicated sample preparation. The differences cannot be ascribed to different control groups, because at least one of the authors" used non-renal patients.…”

Bone aluminium in haemodialysed patients and in rats injected with aluminium chloride: relationship to impaired bone mineralisation.

“…This form of dialysis osteomalacia does not improve after treatment with 1,25 dihydroxy vitamin D3 (1,25(OH)2D3) or with la hydroxy vitamin D3 (1aOHD3) (Pierides et al, 1976;Ellis et al, 1977), and deficiency of 1,25(OH)2D3 is not its sole cause. Recently there has been speculation concerning the role of aluminium intoxication in the production of dialysis osteomalacia and dialysis dementia (Alfrey et al, 1976;Platts et al, 1977;Elliott et al, 1978;McDermott et al, 1978;Ward et al, 1978). The main sources of aluminium are its salts in the dialysate water and aluminium hydroxide administered to control hyperphosphataemia.…”

Vitamin A and Alzheimer's Disease

“…These pa tients exhibited florid central nervous system symptoms which resolved only when alu minum was removed from the dialysate or a functional kidney implanted. Brain alu minum levels in these patients were noted to be high, and the levels remained high even after resolution of the encephalopathy [25]. Perhaps the syndrome was produced by the acutely high levels of both aluminum and vitamin A acting in concert, a condition which subsided when blood levels of one or both components returned towards normal.…”