Colchicine: An unusual but potential life threatening poisoning - about 3 cases
Résumé
Colchicine is an alkaloid used for treatment and prevention of acute gouty attacks and for other inflammatory diseases including Familial Mediterranean Fever or Behcet's disease. However, its toxicity limits its use. Colchicine poisoning is unusual but potentially life threatening. Colchicine toxicity is due to multi-organ failure, which can be fatal in the most severe cases, usually by cardiac or respiratory failure. Colchicine poisoning can be observed following an insufficient elimination, a drug interaction or a massive ingestion of colchicine. We report here 3 cases of acute poisoning occurring after a massive intake of colchicine in a suicide context. In the 3 cases, measurement of plasma concentrations of colchicine by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry has confirmed the intoxication. In the most severe case, regular measurement of colchicine plasma concentrations has permitted to trace the evolution of intoxication. (C) 2015 Societe Francaise de Toxicologie Analytique. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.