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CASE REPORT article

Front. Pharmacol.

Sec. Cardiovascular and Smooth Muscle Pharmacology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1597869

Loperamide Poisoning Resulting in Death: A Case Report and Literature Review

Provisionally accepted
Bowen  WangBowen Wang1Zhan  ZhangZhan Zhang1Ke  ChenKe Chen2Zhongyang  DuZhongyang Du3Tianchen  ZhangTianchen Zhang1Ping  XiePing Xie1*
  • 1Gansu Provincial Hospital, Lanzhou, China
  • 2Gansu University of Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou, Gansu, China
  • 3Wushan county Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Loperamide is a medication commonly used to treat acute and chronic diarrhea and is generally considered safe because it poorly crosses the blood-brain barrier at therapeutic doses. However, in recent years, with the abuse and overdose of loperamide, its potential cardiotoxicity and central nervous system depression have increasingly raised concerns. This article reports a case of a 15-year-old male patient who died from poisoning after a single ingestion of 60mg of loperamide. The patient took a large dose of loperamide 6 hours before admission and was found to have respiratory and cardiac arrest 1 hour before admission. Despite cardiopulmonary resuscitation and advanced life support treatment, the patient ultimately died from irreversible brain damage. Electrocardiography showed significant QTc interval prolongation, and the plasma loperamide concentration was 50ng/mL, indicating loperamide's cardiotoxicity. This article, through this case and a review of the literature, discusses the mechanisms of loperamide's cardiotoxicity, clinical manifestations, and treatment strategies, aiming to enhance clinicians' awareness of loperamide poisoning.

Keywords: Loperamide toxicity, cardiotoxicity, QTc interval prolongation, adolescent poisoning, case report

Received: 21 Mar 2025; Accepted: 04 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Zhang, Chen, Du, Zhang and Xie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Ping Xie, Gansu Provincial Hospital, Lanzhou, China

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