Severe vancomycin-induced anaphylactic reaction

Rūta Kupstaitė¹, Asta Baranauskaitė¹, Margarita Pileckytė¹, Audrius Sveikata², Edmundas Kaduševičius², Gintarė Muckienė³

¹Department of Rheumatology, Kaunas University of Medicine, ²Department of Theoretical and Clinical Pharmacology, Kaunas University of Medicine, ³Kaunas 2nd Clinical Hospital

Key words: vancomycin; anaphylaxis; side effects; case report.

Summary. Vancomycin is widely used against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections, but it is associated with many adverse effects such as nephrotoxicity, ototoxicity, gastrointestinal disturbances, blood disorders, and two types of hypersensitivity reactions – an anaphylactoid reaction known as “red man syndrome” and anaphylaxis. We report a case of a 23-year-old man who developed a vancomycin-induced anaphylactic reaction in the treatment of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection.

Correspondence to E. Kaduševičius, Department of Theoretical and Clinical Pharmacology, Kaunas University of Medicine, Eivenių 2, 50009 Kaunas, Lithuania. E-mail: e610614@yahoo.com

Received 24 March 2009, accepted 4 January 2010