Anticonvulsant hypersensitivity syndrome: clinic case and literature review

The anticonvulsant hypersensitivity syndrome is a rare adverse reaction in which the skin, lymph nodes and internal organs are affected. It is usually caused by classic anticonvulsants such as phenytoin, carbamazepine or phenobarbital.

Here we present the case of a 25-year-old woman from Córdoba, Argentina, who suffered a severe reaction to oxcarbazepine with a rash, lymphadenopathy, hepatitis and an unusual analytic. Clinical abnormalities were reversed after oxcarbazepine was terminated and treatment with diphenhydramine and dexamethasone was initiated.

DRESS syndrome is a hypersensitivity reaction that takes weeks to manifest, and is characterized by rash, leukocytosis with eosinophilia, adenopathies, liver involvement, and reactivation of the herpes virus 6, being more frequent in carbamazepine or phenytoin, and in rare cases to oxcarbazepine.

In general, this strong medicine is not taken into account as a cause of hypersensitivity, reports suggest that it could be related to cases similar to this one, and studies that are more targeted are required, due to the morbidity and mortality of the syndrome.