[Promethazine - an old pharmaceutical that has got a renaissance. An avalanche-like increase in the number of overdose cases in Sweden].

Promethazine is a phenothiazine derivative antihistamine first introduced in the 1940s that is used in multiple medical conditions as a sedative/hypnotic agent. The drug is not addictive, which probably explains why it is increasingly used in the care of drug addicts. During the recent decade the sales of promethazine in Sweden have increased threefold while the yearly number of overdose cases with this drug at the Swedish Poisons Centre has increased from 100 to nearly 700. The anticholinergic delirium that may be provoked by this poisoning carries a symptomatology which may resemble the symptoms seen after an intracranial catastrophe, wherefore some cases are exposed to unnecessary diagnostic measures and invasive ventilator treatment. The case report and literature review presented in this paper conclude that physostigmine is the drug of choice in delirium provoked by overdose of promethazine, and that its use in this setting carries a minimal risk of serious side effects.