Manifold manifestations of ergotism

Vasospastic side effects leading to organic manifestations are rare in ergo tamine therapy To our knowledge, combinations of more than two signs of erg otism have rarely been described in the literature so far. We present a GS-year-old male patient who as a consequence of severe migrai ne had developed ergotamine abuse. He was admitted to our hospital after on e week of increasing abdominal pain. During laparotomy, necrotic areas of t he small intestine and the sigmoid colon were resected, which on histopatho logic examination revealed severe hypertrophy of the smooth musculature of mesenteric arteries, resulting from chronic vasospasms. Postoperatively, th e patient developed ischaemia of the limbs which was confirmed by angiograp hy. Before death, the patient also showed ischaemic signs in the acrae and necrosis of the tongue.