Management of Hydrofluoric Acid Burns in the Emergency Department

Management of Hydrofluoric Acid Burns

DESCRIPTION This is a 45-year-old male who injured himself while working on a motor vehicle 5 days prior to presentation. A cleaning agent containing hydrofluoric acid came into contact with both hands. Initially the patient only complained of minor discomfort but over the course of 5 days, he developed progressively worsening pain and swelling involving the right thumb and left index finger. H...

Burns from exposure to anhydrous hydrofluoric acid.

Rationale of the treatment of hydrofluoric acid burns.

Carney, Shirley A., Hall, M., Lawrence, J. C., and Ricketts, C. R. (1974). British Journal of Industrial Medicine, 31, 317-321. Rationale of the treatment of hydrofluoric acid burns. On contact with skin hydrofluoric acid yields hydrogen and fluoride ions, which exhaust the tissue's buffering capacity. Fluoride was found to be toxic to skin cells, as judged by the accumulation of 3-phosphoglyce...

Burns caused by dilute hydrofluoric acid in the bleach.

Two male cleaning workers aged 62 (patient 1) and 28-(patient 2) presented with red, swollen, aching hands and fingers. At the first interview, the fingers of the right hand of both patients were swollen from the proximal interphalangeal joint to the tip of the finger. The fingers were red and intensely painful. The bleach that both patients used contained 9.5% hydrofluoric acid, and therefore ...

Hydrofluoric acid burns from a household rust remover.

TO THE EDITOR: The report by Mangion et al draws attention to a serious risk in the environment. The general public has been increasingly protected against the risk of harm from domestic products by a combination of legal liability actions and government regulation. Thus, the continuing availability to the general public of hydrofluoric acid (HF) in concentrations that are hazardous is somethin...