[Recent trends of mushroom poisoning in Japan].

The incidence of mushroom poisoning was studied statistically from 2001 to 2010 in Japan. The total incident of mushroom poisoning was 569 cases, which involved 1,920 patients and 10 deaths. The average incident was 56.9 cases per year, involving 192 patients and 1 death. On regional differences, the mushroom poisoning was more frequent in the northeastern part of Japan. The rate of total incidents for each type of poisoning, which were classified according to symptoms caused, 54.6% in the type of gastro-intestinal disorder, 11.6% in the type of neurological symptoms, and 2.4% in the type of intracellular disorder (violent vomiting, diarrhea and dehydration and hepato-nephrosis, or rhabdomyolysis, or erroneous perception, etc.), respectively. Two species of poisonous mushrooms with gastro-intestinal disorder, Lampteromyces japonicus and Rhodophyllus rhodopolius caused the majority (52%) of all poisonings in Japan.

[Determination of amanitatoxins by HPLC].

High-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) assay has been developed for the simultaneous determination of alpha-amanitin, beta-amanitin and phalloidin in serum. Three toxins were extracted by reflux in a water bath at 80 degrees C for one hour and purified by Sep-Pak Plus tC18 cartridges. The HPLC assay was performed under gradient conditions using Develosil RP AQUEOUS column. The moble phase consisted with a mixture of acetonitorile containing 0.01 M ammonium acetate(pH 5.0). The column effluence was monitored at 295 nm, 302 nm and 230 nm for 35 min. Detection limit of three toxins in serum were 0.2 microgram/ml respectively. High recovery yields in the range of 81.5-88.1% for toxins were obtained by using this method.