1 Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota Hospitals, Minneapolis
A 9-year-old girl with an unusual, delayed penicillin reaction showed purpura, myalgia, arthralgia, and anemia following a benzathine-procaine penicillin G injection. Benign intracranial hypertension, not previously reported with penicillin reactions, was manifested by headache, papilledema, clonus, cerebral spinal fluid pressure of 410 mm of water, and a normal carotid arteriogram. All of the patient's symptoms cleared spontaneously within 5 weeks after their onset. The presumed pathophysiology of this association was cerebral angioedema and vasculitis. The patient is the seventh reported as experiencing a systemic reaction to penicilloyl-polylysine skin testing.
Submitted on October 23, 1967