[Case report: sepsis and multi organ dysfunction syndrome in a patient returning from holiday on the Canary Islands:...

A forty-five year old male tourist suffers a febrile illness, delirium and severe abdominal pain on the fifth day of his holiday trip to the Canary Islands (Spain). After hospitalization he presents a surgical abdomen which requires emergency laparotomy however without detectable pathology. Progressing critical illness and septic shock leads to multiple organ failure, but focus identification is not possible. Well after return to Germany diagnostic uncertainty persists due to recurrent fever and possible travel-associated infections. Finally, besides a simple pararectal abscess, manifestation of acute intermittent porphyria is diagnosed.

Clinicians should consider acute intermittent porphyria as a rare cause of a surgical abdomen. Its clinical presentation include abdominal pain, life-threatening neurovisceral, neurological and psychiatric symptoms, hypertension, tachycardia, hyponatriemia and reddish urine.