Reactions 1285 - 23 Jan 2010

SOctreotide

Dyspnoea, throat angioedema and urticariasuccessfully managed with desensitisation: casereport

A 58-year-old man experienced two separate allergicreactions, consisting of shortness of breath, throatangioedema and urticaria, during treatment with octreotide[Sandostatin; dosages and durations of therapy to reactiononsets not stated]. He subsequently underwent successfuldesensitisation to octreotide.

The man had widely metastatic carcinoid syndrome thatwas refractory to radiation, chemotherapy and surgery. Hehad severe flushing episodes which only seemed torespond to octreotide; however, he developed allergy tooctreotide after two long but interrupted courses. Heexperienced two identical allergic reactions, approximately3 years apart, including dyspnoea, throat angioedema andurticaria within seconds of injecting SC octreotide. He washospitalised for both reactions [treatment not stated].

Because of the man’s poor quality of life, he wanted torestart octreotide. He underwent desensitisation starting at0.00004µg intravenously, and increasing approximatelyevery 15 minutes by a factor of 10 with a final dose of400µg intravenously. He was successfully desensitised,and was able to take SC octreotide 400µg daily;subsequently, his quality of life greatly improved.Van Lancker JA. DESENSITIZATION TO SANDOSTATIN (OCTREOTIDE) INA PATIENT WITH CARCINOID SYNDROME. 2009 Annual Meeting of theAmerican College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology : abstr. P177, 5 Nov 2009.Available from: URL: http://www.acaai.org - USA 803004699

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Reactions 23 Jan 2010 No. 12850114-9954/10/1285-0001/$14.95 © 2010 Adis Data Information BV. All rights reserved