Propoxyphene Hydrochloride Poisoning

Abstract

ACUTE POISONING after ingestion of propoxyphene hydrochloride (Darvon) is unusual. A fatal overdose is rarer still. There appear to be only two known detailed reports of deaths directly attributable to propoxyphene ingestion,^1,2 although there is mention in the literature of at least one other fatality.³ This communication describes a patient who died nine days after taking about 2.3 gm of propoxyphene hydrochloride. Report of a Case A 65-year-old white woman underwent pneumonectomy on the right in December 1963 for an endobronchial papillary squamous cell carcinoma. Postoperatively she did well, and at her last clinic visit in February of 1966, she was asymptomatic. Propoxyphene had been prescribed initially for incisional pain and again in April 1965 for headache. In March 1966 she was brought to the emergency room about one hour after she had ingested, according to her husband, approximately thirty-five 65-mg capsules of propoxyphene hydrochloride. Upon arrival she