Highlights
- •This was the first reported mortality due to listeria associated with alemtuzumab therapy in the setting of Multiple Sclerosis.
- •The rapid and fulminant presentation had symptoms which commonly occur following routine administration of alemtuzumab.
- •The Acute Phase post administration appears to confer particular vulnerability to this pathogen therefore high vigilance for this complication is mandatory.
Abstract
We report the case of a patient who died from the rare complication of Listeriosis
in the immediate phase following alemtuzumab administration one month after discontinuing
dimethyl fumarate (DMF). There is considerable overlap with typical post-infusion
symptoms therefore high surveillance and low threshold for empirical or possible prophylactic
antibiotic therapy is advocated.
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References
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 18, 2018
Accepted:
May 16,
2018
Received in revised form:
February 28,
2018
Received:
June 13,
2017
Footnotes
☆Declaration of interests—no authors have any conflict of interest in relation to this work. Dr. Canham, Dr. Inglis and Dr. Cottrell have received educational support from Biogen Idec, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, TEVA, Sanofi-Genzyme and Roche.
✯✯This work was not funded.
Identification
Copyright
Crown Copyright © 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
