Fatal Complement-Induced Leukostasis After Diatrizoate Injection
Principles of Clinicopathologic Diagnosis
- Henry Schneiderman, MD;
- Dale E. Hammerschmidt, MD;
- Anne Ritke McCall;
- Harry S. Jacob, MD
- From the Department of Pathology, Rush-Presbyterian-St Luke's Medical Center, Chicago (Dr Schneiderman and Ms McCall); and the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Minnesota School of Medicine, Minneapolis (Drs Hammerschmidt and Jacob). Dr Schneiderman is now with the Departments of Medicine and Pathology, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington.
Abstract
A case of fatal radiographic contrast medium (RCM)-induced pulmonary granulocyte aggregation (leukostasis) showed massive elevation of the postmortem histamine level. Suspicion of this phenomenon in diverse clinical settings permits clinical and pathological documentation via increased plasma levels of C3a and other means. The existence of effective prophylaxis stimulates a search for predictive tests.
(JAMA 1983;250:2340-2342)
Footnotes
-
Reprint requests to the Department of Medicine, University of Connecticut Health Center, Room L-3092, Farmington, CT 06032 (Dr Schneiderman).
