title: Death due to fulminant toxic-shock syndrome: differential diagnosis of a multilayered clinical picture.
abstract: Reported is the case study of a 27-year-old top-performance sportswoman who died of a fulminant illness with multiple organ failure. Long-term polypragmatic therapy and pharmacotherapy as well as acute analgesic and non-steroid antirheumatic treatment due to lumbago led to the diagnosis of a "complex toxic-allergic process". Numerous pathologic-anatomical findings, including the absence of septic spleen reaction and the demonstration of hyperacute polyradiculitis, supported this diagnosis. The present article discusses the possible differential diagnoses of the illness with the conclusion that its symptoms, clinical course, laboratory constellation and pathologic-anatomical findings better correspond to infection-caused toxic-shock syndrome (TSS) than to a toxic-allergic process.
authors.affiliation: I Department of Internal Medicine, Urban Hospital, Berlin, G.F.R.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: De Ridder
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Dissmann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004300:Doping in Sports; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009102:Multiple Organ Failure / Q000209:etiology; D012772:Shock, Septic / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*