Citation

Suárez-Peñaranda JM, Rico-Boquete R, Lopez-Rivadulla M, Blanco-Pampín J, Concheiro-Carro L. Int. J. Legal Med. 1998; 111(3): 151-153.

Affiliation

Instituto de Medicina Legal, Facultad de Medicina, Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s004140050136

PMID

9587798

Abstract

Pentoxifylline is a xanthine derivative used in the treatment of peripheral vascular disease. It is considered to be a safe drug and to the best of our knowledge there are no reports in the medical literature of cases of fatal poisoning. There is only one previous report of a young woman who tried to commit suicide by taking a large amount of the drug but recovered. We report the case of a 54-year-old man who took a massive dose of pentoxifylline and died after 24 h from refractory shock. The blood levels of pentoxifylline were as high as 32.5 micrograms/ml where the average therapeutic level is 1.3 micrograms/ml.

Language: en