Three Cases of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome Associated with Methazolamide Treatment

ABSTRACT

There have been recent reports on the increasing number of Stevens-Johnson syndrome cases resulting from methazolamide and its relatively higher incidence in Japanese and Korean than any other people. The objective of this study is to examine its developement potential in Korean people.We observed three patients as the subjects of this research, who had been suffering from skin eruption during glaucoma treatment in the Department of Ophthalmology Catholic University, College of Medicine. All of them, for lowering IOP, took methazolamide 50mg a day for more than two weeks, but they had no history of systemic disease but glaucoma or hypersensitivity induced by other medications. With regard to their skin, vesicular eruption came out in their whole body and particularly oral mucosa severely. Also, systemic symptom such as slight fever and general malaise was accompained . However, by quitting the use of methazolamide and medicating corticosteriods instead, they recovered with no serious complication.It can be concluded, therefore, that they had Stevens-Johnson syndrome mainly by methazolamide based on the condition of their skin eruptionand the fact that they got well again by stopping the use of methazolamide on which they chiefly relied. However, a further systematic research on more cases os required with a view to elucidating confirmatory diagnosis and ethnic pecularity of the syndrome.