Assessments of blood lead levels in children with febrile convulsion

BACKGROUND Lead elements have an adverse effect on human health. The most important complications of lead poisoning are disorders of nervous system particularly seizure .This study aimed to evaluate the blood lead levels and its association with convulsion in a group of hospitalized febrile children. METHODS In this analytic cross-sectional study, 60 hospitalized febrile children with 1- 60 month old participated in the study via non-probability convenience sampling method. All of the information included sex, age, weight, blood lead levels and history of convulsion gathered in the questionnaire. Finally all of data were statistically analyzed. RESULTS 66.7% of samples were male and 33.3% were female. The mean age was 32.57±38.27 months and the mean weight was 13.04±9.61kg. The Mean and Standard deviation of Blood lead level was 4.83±3.50μg/dL. 10% of samples had lead levels greater than 10μg/dL. 53.3% of patients have convulsion and other don't have it. Blood lead levels was 4.91±3.65μg/dL in children with convulsion and 4.73± 3.38μg/dL in children without it; the difference was not significant (p= 0.8). CONCLUSION Overall, no significant association was found between blood lead levels and convulsion.