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Acute pancreatitis following cytotoxic therapy based on doxorubicin and vinorelbin : about a case report Volume 18, issue 4, Décembre 1999

Authors
Pharmacie centrale, Centre anticancéreux René-Huguenin, 35, rue Dailly, 92210 Saint-Cloud.

This letter deals with the case of a patient hospitalised for abdominal pains and vomiting a few days after a cytotoxic therapy including doxorubicine 70 mg and vinorelbine 35 mg (J1 et J8) for a metastatic breast cancer. It was diagnosed as acute pancreatitis. After dismissing chronic alcoholism, vesicular lithiasis or infection, it was probably caused by a iatrogenic origin. Taking the medicaments associated with cytotoxic drug into account and in order to preserve the best cancerologic strategy for this pessimistic pronostic, all the drugs requiered by this treatment were introduced again progressively. As a result, any occasional acute pancreatitis appeared in spite of the potential pancreatotoxicity of many drugs : doxorubicine, vinorelbine, ondansetron et corticosteroids.