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. 1973 Jun;48(6):476–479. doi: 10.1136/adc.48.6.476

Wilson's disease or chronic copper poisoning?

John Walker-Smith, Jeanette Blomfield
PMCID: PMC1648447  PMID: 4712779

Abstract

The case history is given of a child who presented at 14 months with ascites and was found to have severe micronodular cirrhosis with biochemical evidence of Wilson's disease, but in view of the severity of the pathology and early age of presentation, the possibility of chronic copper poisoning was investigated. It was found that the child's drinking water was obtained from a bore via new copper pipes. The bore water had a pH of 4·4 and after passage through copper pipes had a very high copper level of 675 μg/100 ml. He subsequently died from liver failure and at necropsy very high copper levels were found in his liver. The final diagnosis remains uncertain.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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