[Acute alcoholic myopathy]

A case of acute alcoholic myopathy in a subject with a 20 year history of alcohol abuse is described. The condition emerged during an episode of delirium tremens and had a quickly deadly outcome. The rapid evolution of the clinical situation accompanied by variation in the biohumoral indices (CPK, LDH, myoglobin) is stressed and although this prevented from obtaining anatomopathological samples of the rhabdomyolisis, the specific diagnosis was made with reasonable certainty. The onset of the condition was not foreseeable because of the absence of an accurate history of the subject's alcohol abuse on his admission and of significant biohumoral data indicating the existence of an alcohol correlated pathology.