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ORPHA:330021

Mercury poisoning

high confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Hydrargyria · Mercurialism · Mercury intoxication

Publications

7,418

93.6th percentile

Trials

2

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

998

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Mercury poisoning is caused mainly through ingestion or inhalation of any of the 3 forms of mercury, elemental, organic, and inorganic. Exposure to elemental mercury affects the pulmonary (inhalation of mercury vapors causes coughing, chills, fever, shortness of breath), dermatological (mild swelling, vesiculation, scaling, irritation, urticaria, erythema and allergic contact dermatitis accompanied by pain), and peripheral and central nervous (CNS) systems (depression, paranoia, extreme irritability, hallucinations, inability to concentrate, memory loss, hands, head, lips, tongue, jaw and eyelids tremors, weight loss, perpetually low body temperature, drowsiness, headaches, insomnia, fatigue). Exposure to inorganic mercury generally causes development of a metallic taste, local oropharyngeal pain, nausea, vomiting, bloody diarrhea, colic abdominal pain, renal dysfunction and, neurologic abnormalities; while that to organic mercury can lead to delayed neurotoxicity.

How rare: 1-9 / 100 000 — about one to nine people per hundred thousand.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (2)

hydrargyria · mercurialism

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

2/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    7,418 matched papers (1,166 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    2 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

Not enriched in this build.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

7,418

7,418 papers — among the better-studied rare conditions, though still a fraction of common-disease literature (breast cancer: over 700,000). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=5449) is 41.

7,418 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).

1,166 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 93.6th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 7,418 · MeSH hits: 86

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

998

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Crespo-Lopez ME8 papers · 2025

    Laboratorio de Farmacologia Molecular, Instituto de Ciencias Biologicas (ICB), Universidade Federal do Para (UFPA), Belem, Brazil, maria.elena.crespo.lopez@gmail.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Arrifano GP6 papers · 2026

    Laboratório de Farmacologia Molecular, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, PA 66075-110, Brazil. Electronic address: arrifanogabriela@gmail.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Augusto-Oliveira M6 papers · 2026

    Laboratório de Farmacologia Molecular, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, PA 66075-110, Brazil. Electronic address: marcusoliveira@globo.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Lopes-Araújo A6 papers · 2026

    Laboratório de Farmacologia Molecular, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, PA 66075-110, Brazil. Electronic address: amanda.lopes1647@gmail.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Santos-Sacramento L6 papers · 2026

    Laboratório de Farmacologia Molecular, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, PA 66075-110, Brazil. Electronic address: letisacramentolfm@gmail.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    do Nascimento JLM5 papers · 2026

    Laboratorio de Neuroquimica Molecular e Celular, Universidade Federal do Para (UFPA), Belem, Brazil.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Li J5 papers · 2025

    Occupational Disease Department of the First People's Hospital of Baiyin, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Gansu University Traditional Chinese Medicine, Bai Yin 730900, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Macchi BM5 papers · 2026

    Laboratorio de Neuroquimica Molecular e Celular, Universidade Federal do Para (UFPA), Belem, Brazil.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Chen H4 papers · 2026

    School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210000, Jiangsu, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Li S4 papers · 2026

    Development and Utilization Key Laboratory of Northeast Plant Materials, Key Laboratory of Northeast Authentic Materials Research and Development in Liaoning Province, School of Traditional Chinese Meteria Medica, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang 110016, PR China.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

2

interventional trials for this specific condition

2 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; none in our sample are currently recruiting. 120 trials are registered for poisoning, the broader category — shown separately because they may or may not enrol this specific subtype.

Data as of 27 July 2026

2 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 82.4th percentile).

high confidence · 82.4th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

2 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

No currently recruiting studies in the matched set. Open the same search on ClinicalTrials.gov.

Broader category: poisoning

120

Interventional trials for the parent category, exclusive of NCT IDs already counted above. Eligibility for this subtype is not guaranteed.

Worth raising with a clinician. How we count trials.

Recruiting under the broader category

Observational and natural-history studies

1 observational study matches this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

None of the matched observational studies is currently listed as recruiting.

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Where to find support

We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Mercury poisoning" OR "Hydrargyria" OR "Mercurialism" OR "Mercury intoxication"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Mercury Poisoning

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Mercury poisoning" OR "Hydrargyria" OR "Mercurialism" OR "Mercury intoxication"

Interventional trials matched via: both (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 2 interventional · 1 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Parent-category trials query:

"poisoning"

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase, mesh

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T14:03:28.691Z