Increase of renal excretion of organo-mercury compounds like methlymercury by DMPS (2,3-Dimercapto-1-propanesulfonic acid, Dimaval®)

In a highly mercury-burdened, small scale gold mining area in the Philippines, spontaneous urine samples were taken from 75 Hg intoxicated volunteers before (U1), and 2-3 hours after (U2) the oral application of 200 mg DMPS (2,3-Dimercapto-1-propanesulfonic acid, Dimaval®). In the urine samples, the concentrations of organic and inorganic bound mercury were determined separately by CV-AAS. In U1, median concentrations of 15.7 μg inorganic Hg g crea. and 2.2 μg organic Hg g crea. were found. In U2, these values increased to 262 for inorganic Hg and 14.5 for organic Hg. Maximum concentrations (μg g crea.) as high as 7,593 for inorganic Hg and 2,011 for organic Hg were observed after DMPS. The mean (median) increasing factor (U2 U1) was 16.0 for inorganic Hg and 5.1 for organic Hg. There was a trend that females responded better to DMPS than males. It was concluded that DMPS increases the renal excretion of organic bound Hg as it does for inorganic Hg, but to a lesser extent.