A case of idiopathic anaphylaxis followed by acute liver injury.

Full Text

Case Report  Open Access

|    Allergy Asthma Immunol Res. 2013 Jul;5(4):245-247. English. Published online 2013 May 07.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4168/aair.2013.5.4.245  Copyright © 2013 The Korean Academy of Asthma, Allergy and Clinical Immunology • The Korean Academy of Pediatric Allergy and Respiratory Disease A Case of Idiopathic Anaphylaxis Followed by Acute Liver Injury Sujeong Kim, Sun-Young Yoon, So Young Park, Hyouk-Soo Kwon, You Sook Cho, Hee-Bom Moon and Tae-Bum Kim Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Department of Internal Medicine, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.  Correspondence to: Tae-Bum Kim, MD, PhD, Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Department of Internal Medicine, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, 86 Asanbyeongwon-gil, Songpa-gu, Seoul 138-736, Korea. Tel: +82-2-3010-3287; Fax: +82-2-3010-6969; Email: allergy@medimail.co.kr  Received September 26, 2012; Revised November 27, 2012; Accepted December 04, 2012. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Idiopathic anaphylaxis is characterized by recurrent anaphylaxis without a known trigger. The coexistence of acute liver injury with idiopathic anaphylaxis is rare, even in cases of severe anaphylaxis such as shock. An unusual case involving repeated episodes of anaphylactic shock accompanied by acute liver injury is described here. A 36-year-old woman who experienced anaphylaxis due to an unknown cause was referred to our hospital because of marked elevations in her liver enzyme levels. After a thorough evaluation to determine the cause of the acute liver injury, viral infection, drug use, and autoimmune hepatitis were excluded. The episodes were accompanied by elevated liver enzymes, which suggested that this was a case of anaphylaxis followed by acute liver injury. The patient will have to use self-injectable epinephrine to prevent future hepatic failure. Keywords: Idiopathic anaphylaxis, acute liver injury.