An Unusual Occurrence of Deriphyllin-induced Hallucinations: Contingency of Concern

Abstract

Deriphyllin has been a mainstay of asthma therapy despite its narrow therapeutic index and a large pharmacokinetic variability between patients. Here, the authors decided to report a rare case of suspected deriphyllin-induced hallucinations in adults for the first time. An 83-year-old male patient who was a known case of recent onset asthma was on tablet deriphyllin 150 mg BD and salbutamol nebulization BD. He underwent emergency drainage of subdural hematoma due to a history of fall 20 days back with head injury. Within 2 days, he improved and was discharged 3 days later with the medicines. On follow-up after 7 days, he was admitted with a chief complaint of hallucinations. After stopping tablet deriphyllin, the patient's condition drastically improved in next few days and neurology was completely normal. Drug dechallenge was positive in this case since the hallucinations subsided after discontinuation of suspected drug deriphyllin. There are no such cases published previously.