Toxic shock syndrome.

The entity of the variable pictures of an illness summed up by the description "toxic shock syndrome" has been focussed on by a great number of publications in Northern America since 1978, but has been described scarcely until yet in Germany. An etiological relationship with formerly described "toxic scarlet fever" and "Kawasaki syndrome" is to be discussed. This case in charge deals with a 25-year-old female patient, who developed acutely without any former disease during her menstruation an illness of severe clinical presentation. The findings were high fever, arterial hypotension, and reversible renal failure, watery diarrhea and vomitus , different cutaneous manifestations and signs of disseminated intravascular coagulation, and severe thrombocytopenia with bleeding mucosal ulcerations. Massive growth of Staphylococcus aureus was demonstrable as well as growth of Proteus mirabilis and E. coli in a culture of vaginal smear.