[Acute corticosteroid myopathy in patient with asthma]

A patient, treated by mechanical ventilation with pancuronium or atracurium and with intravenously administered corticosteroid for status asthmaticus, presented with rhabdomyolysis (severe amyotrophy and marked of creatine kinase activity) and acute flacid and areflexic quadriplegia, involving the proximal and distal muscles but sparing the cephalic musculature. After review of the investigations (biochemistry, electromyogram, muscle biopsy), the diagnostic of acute corticosteroid myopathy following status asthmaticus was suggested, and a pancuronium neuromuscular complication or a critically ill polyneuropathy excluded. The non-inflammatory rhabdomyolysis concerned all the fiber types. Predominantly distal weakness resolved six months after the insult, in spite of the laboratory recurrence of the rhabdomyolysis at the time of a new status asthmaticus briefly treated with corticosteroid.