A lethal case of the dapsone hypersensitivity syndrome involving the myocardium

In the Netherlands dapsone is used for the treatment of dermatitis herpetiformis, leprosy and Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia and prophylaxis in case of cotrimoxazole allergy. An idiosyncratic drug reaction, known as the dapsone hypersensitivity syndrome (DHS), appears in about 0.5-3.6% of persons treated with dapsone. DHS can be associated with fever, rash and systemic involvement. We present a 35-year-old woman who developed severe DHS seven weeks after starting dapsone. Six weeks after being discharged in a good clinical condition she died from fulminant myocarditis, 11 weeks after the first DHS symptoms and the discontinuation of dapsone.