Contrast-enhanced angiography, used since the 1930s, can help with diagnosis and evaluation of vascular disease. However, the contrast media (CM) used can cause adverse reactions in patients, of either chemotoxic type or allergic/pseudoallergic type. Both reaction types differ greatly in their time of appearance, clinical manifestations, severity, pathomechanism, diagnostic methods and how they are managed. Late reactions to the CM are easily overlooked because people fail to report them. This study reports the case of a patient who suffered a delayed response to nonionic CM during an elective coronary angiography, a review of current literature and recommendations.

Source: The American Journal of the Medical Sciences

First published in August 2011

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