[Tetracyclin intoxication versus idiopathic pancreatitis: report of a case with multiple organ involvement (author's transl)].

The tetracycline class of antibiotics is infrequently used in clinical pediatrics due to its side effects: they include anorexia, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Hypersensitivity, a photosensibility reaction and a brownish discoloration of teeth is less frequently, a pseudotumor cerebri is rarely seen. Once therapeutic plasma levels are exceeded however, either by overdosage or decreased renal or hepatic clearance of the drug, serious complications like a secondary Fanconi-Syndrom or a nephrogenic diabetes insipidus can occur. The increased toxicity of tetracyclines in pregnant women is well known. We would like to report a fatal case, where serious complications like a secondary Fanconi-Syndrom, toxic degeneration of the liver, a clinically undected pancreatitis and a protein loosing enteropathy are though to be either direct consequences of tetracycline overdosage or the indirect effect of a shocklike syndrom by means of a nonoliguric renal failure induced by tetracycline.