Meropenem Induced Severe Thrombocytopenia in an Adult Patient: A Case Report

Abstract

Drug induced immune thrombocytopenia is a serious life-threatening clinical condition, the diagnosis of which is often very difficult, and mainly performed on clinical criteria and rarely on confirmatory laboratory tests. A 52-year-old male, post Covid-19 patient, admitted to the hospital for the management of severe vomiting and abdominal pain, developed sepsis, and started with meropenem as an empirical anti-microbial agent. After two days of therapy, the patient presented with severe oral gingival bleeding, thrombocytopenic purpura, and severe thrombocytopenia, which was also accompanied by lymphopenia in the patient. The clinical significance of this case encouraged us to report this rare complication of meropenem. The health-care professionals and caretakers should be aware of this adverse drug reaction so that it can be promptly diagnosed and managed.

Keywords

• meropenem
• thrombocytopenia
• lymphopenia
• adverse drug reaction