JIST

Abstract

Intentional or accidental poisoning of methanol is common as it is used in many daily used chemicals. Manifestation of its toxicity is delayed until oxidation is done by the liver to formaldehyde and formic acid. It mainly affects the central nervous system, especially basal ganglia. This is a case of a person who took methanol accidentally. He developed hyper density in the thalamus on CT after 10 days and died two days after that. On post-mortem, there was diffuse haemorrhage in the right thalamus and patchy haemorrhage into the white matter surrounding the left thalamus. This is the first case of postmortem finding of thalamic haemorrhage in methanol poisoning from India.