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Arch Intern Med. 2003;163:735-736.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In a recently released review of published case reports, excluding those related to heparin administration, 98 drugs were listed with a definite or probable causal role for drug-induced thrombocytopenia. The most commonly implicated were quinidine, gold salts, and the combination drug trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole.^1-3 Drug-induced thrombocytopenia is mostly produced by the autoimmune mechanism.⁴ A short-term drug treatment induction period, averaging 14 days, with a short recovery period after withdrawal of drug treatment, averaging 7 days, have been described.² Although thrombocytopenia can be severe, major bleeding and death have been reported in only 9% and 0.8% of the cases, respectively, we reviewed in the literature.² We report the case of a patient with severe thrombocytopenia, probably induced by levodopa, a side effect previously reported in only 1 case.⁵

Report of a Case

In April 2000, a 76-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of heart failure. During the examination he described several spontaneous hematomas he had . . . [Full Text of this Article]