Rhabdomyolysis is a relatively rare disease caused by various factors and is characterized by skeletal muscle damage. While crush injury is the most common cause in Korea as well as other countries, overexertion is an important common cause among young men in daily life. Although exercise-induced rhabdomyolysis is already well published among athletes or military persons, there have been few reports in workers.

We observed a 28-year-old male worker who had elevated liver transaminases during a periodic workers' health checkup. Although he did not exhibit the typical pattern of toxic hepatitis, we had to exclude any possibility of dimethylacetamide-induced hepatitis (DIH) because he had worked in a spandex-producing factory, which already had a history of many DIH cases over several years. We performed careful history taking, several laboratory tests, liver ultrasonography and liver biopsy. We also investigated the results of biological monitoring and air concentrations of dimethylacetamide. The findings from these examinations supported the clinical diagnosis of exercise-induced rhabdomyolysis with hepatitis.

This case demonstrates that exercise can induce rhabdomyolysis and hepatitis. This disease must be treated by prompt and appropriate management because it might develop more serious complications such as acute renal failure.