Venlafaxine intoxication with development of takotsubo cardiomyopathy: successful use of extracorporeal life support, intravenous lipid emulsion and CytoSorb®

We describe a young patient who ingested 18 g (240 times the daily therapeutic dose) of venlafaxine in a suicide attempt. She developed severe cardiomyopathy in a takotsubo distribution causing cardiogenic shock and multiorgan dysfunction syndrome (MODS). She was successfully treated with intravenous lipid emulsion (ILE), extracorporeal life support (ECLS) and CytoSorb (R). This is remarkable as, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the highest amount of venlafaxine intake seen in the literature with a nonfatal outcome.