You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Case Reports: Reminder of important clinical lesson
Aplastic anaemia following antibiotic use for urinary tract infection
  1. Aditya Sharma1,
  2. Arvind Suresh2,
  3. Jonathan Pirruccello1 and
  4. Matthew Sullivan3
  1. 1Internal Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA
  2. 2Dartmouth College Geisel School of Medicine, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA
  3. 3Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Jonathan Pirruccello; jonathan.pirruccello{at}hitchcock.org

Abstract

Aplastic anaemia is often associated with recent viral illnesses to include EBV and parvovirus along with certain medications such as anticonvulsants and sulfa containing antibiotics. We describe a case report of a female patient in her 70s who presented with pancytopenia after being treated with nitrofurantoin and ciprofloxacin for suspected urinary tract infection. She underwent an extensive workup to rule out alternative aetiologies of her pancytopenia to include a broad viral, autoimmune and malignancy evaluation which were unrevealing. Given her recent exposure to ciprofloxacin and nitrofurantoin and marrow recovery following removal of these agents, it was presumed that antibiotic exposure was the underlying cause of her aplastic anaemia.

  • Haematology (drugs and medicines)
  • Haematology (incl blood transfusion)

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2022-254547

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Twitter @ArvindSuresh1

    • Contributors The following authors were responsible for drafting of the text, sourcing and editing of clinical images, investigation results, drawing original diagrams and algorithms, and critical revision for important intellectual content: ASharma, ASuresh, JP and MS. The following authors gave final approval of the manuscript: MS.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Case reports provide a valuable learning resource for the scientific community and can indicate areas of interest for future research. They should not be used in isolation to guide treatment choices or public health policy.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.