NITRITOID REACTION TO TRYPARSAMIDE:  REPORT OF A CASE

Vasomotor reactions not uncommonly occur to the arsenicals used in the treatment of syphilis, especially to the trivalent arsphenamines. The pentavalent tryparsamide, however, rarely produces ill effects. Moore¹ stated that "visual damage is the only complication of tryparsamide therapy to be feared." With 6,933 injections of tryparsamide given by the medical department of the United States Navy,² only 1 untoward result occurred: a mild exfoliative dermatitis. A thorough search of the literature revealed a paucity of reports of vasomotor reactions to this drug. A suggestive report was that of Miller and O'Donnell,³ whose patient suffered a profound collapse with generalized pallor of the skin, rather than the rubor associated with the so-called nitritoid reaction. Recently, however, Astrachan and Franks⁴ reported a typical nitritoid reaction in a 32 year old woman and also referred to two previous reports.⁵ According to Stokes⁶ and O'Leary,⁷ this