Fatal Overdose With Trazodone : Case Report and Literature Review

Abstract

A fatal case of suicide with trazodone alone in a 40-year-old patient is reported. Life-threatening arrhythmias, such as torsades de pointes and complete AV block, are recorded. Blood collected at admission contained a trazodone toxic concentration of 25.4 micrograms/mL. The patient developed multiple organ failure and died less than 24 hours after his admission to the emergency department. The authors discuss the effects of overdose of trazodone, a well-known safe antidepressant drug.

Evaluation of postmortem redistribution phenomena for commonly encountered drugs

“…Studies on amitriptyline [4,18,28,31,33,34,54,55], carbamazepine [28,30,31,36,37], tramadol [22,46,[56][57][58][59] and trazodone [47][48][49][60][61][62][63] related deaths and PMR have frequently been reported. Propofol related deaths [64][65][66][67][68][69] have frequently been reported, but studies on PMR of propofol have not been reported.…”

Determination of antidepressants in human postmortem blood, brain tissue, and hair using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

“…c Full line: blank hair using sodium hydroxide; dotted line, blank hair using phosphate buffer. 1, venlafaxine; 2, m-chlorophenylpiperazine; 3, desmethylfluoxetine; 4, viloxazine; 5, fluvoxamine; 6, fluoxetine; 7, fluoxetine d 6 In blood, the intrabatch and interbatch precisions were acceptable for all compounds, except for sertraline at high concentration (19%). Intrabatch precision for brain tissue samples was acceptable, except the intrabatch precision for citalopram at low concentrations (16%).…”

“…These highly prescribed drugs are, however, frequently used together with other legal or illegal drugs and can result in synergy of symptoms and intoxications [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Furthermore, severe life-threatening interactions such as the serotonin syndrome have been described [13][14][15][16].…”

QT Prolongation and delayed atrioventricular conduction caused by acute ingestion of trazodone

“…Cardiovascular effects of trazodone ingestion are generally minor, and include mild hypotension. A small number of fatalities have been reported, and these have involved patients who ingested massive quantities of trazodone or co-ingested other drugs, particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (4,5). Both QT prolongation and torsades de pointes are recognized complications of trazodone overdose (6,7).…”