Acute myocardial infarction in a 56-year-old female patient treated with sulfasalazine

Drug rash, eosinophilia, and systemic symptoms (DRESS) syndrome represents one pattern of the cutaneous involvement in type IV hypersensitivity reaction to drugs. It is a severe, delayed, idiosyncratic reaction presented as rash with fever, lymphadenopathy, and visceral involvement. There are several reported cases of sulfasalazine-induced DRESS syndrome, but myocardial involvement was rare. High index of suspicion is needed in every patient receiving these drugs for prompt diagnosis and early management. We report a case of a 56-year-old woman treated with sulfasalazine for ankylosing spondylitis for 3 weeks, which was discontinued after development of DRESS syndrome. Despite treating her with high dose of steroid and cyclosporine, her symptoms persisted, and ultimately, she developed toxic myocarditis with a misleading presentation of acute ST-elevated myocardial infarction. The diagnosis was made based on postmortem histopathologic finding.