INTRA-VASCULAR COAGULATION INDUCED BY QUININE - UNEXPECTED HAZARD OF BITTER LEMON

The quinine content of 'bitter lemon' mineral water seems to have been the sensitizing exposure in a patient who developed disseminated intravascular coagulation as a result of quinine hypersensitivity. There are many reports in the literature describing thrombocytopenia as a complication of quinine ingestion, either as a hypersensitivity phenomenon or as a direct result of marrow toxicity, but in this case the mechanism of thrombocytopenia was found to be disseminated intravascular coagulation, a complication not previously described.