Fatal Hyperpyrexia with Antidepressant Drugs

Fatal toxicity of antidepressant drugs in overdose.

A fatal toxicity index (deaths per million National Health Service prescriptions) was calculated for antidepressant drugs on sale during the years 1975-84 in England, Wales, and Scotland. The tricyclic drugs introduced before 1970 had a higher index than the mean for all the drugs studied (p less than 0.001). In this group the toxicity of amitriptyline, dibenzepin, desipramine, and dothiepin wa...

Fatal massive amphetamine ingestion associated with hyperpyrexia.

Amphetamine use in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s resulted in many reports of death attributed to toxicity. Few approved indications exist for the medical use of amphetamine and its derivatives. Unfortunately, when compared with other illegal street drugs, nonmedical uses of various amphetamines have been increasing in the 1990s. The abuse of amphetamines continues to cause severe and lethal intoxi...

Antidepressant Drugs

Depression is a common mental disorder characterized by sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-esteem, sleep or appetite disturbances, fatigue and lack of concentration. The disorder can be either chronic or recurrent, substantially reducing the individual’s capacity to work or study, or perform the activities of daily living [1]. Depression is more common in women...

Treatment of childhood depression with antidepressant drugs.

Fatal toxicity of serotoninergic and other antidepressant drugs: analysis of United Kingdom mortality data.

Several studies over the past 15 years have compared the number of fatal poisonings due to antidepressant drugs in the United Kingdom with drug use statistics to derive a fatal toxicity index: deaths per million prescriptions. 2 Greater than 10-fold differences in the index have been shown between tricyclic antidepressants and even larger differences between some tricyclics and newer antidepres...