Liver injury may increase the risk of diazoxide toxicity: a case report

Stress-related hyperinsulinism (HI) may lead to recalcitrant hypoglycemia for weeks or months following perinatal stress, often in premature newborn infants. Diazoxide is an effective and usually safe medication to treat this type and other types of neonatal HI. We report a male infant born at 35-week gestation with severe respiratory distress who developed prolonged hypoglycemia requiring high glucose infusion rates. He also had abnormal liver function tests, including hypoalbuminemia. Laboratory tests were consistent with HI, which responded to diazoxide treatment (10 mg/kg/day started at 10 days of age). The patient developed cardiorespiratory failure, hepatomegaly, worsening liver function tests, and hyperglycemia 7 weeks after the initiation of therapy. Diazoxide was discontinued with rapid resolution of the cardiorespiratory failure and without recurrence of hypoglycemia. Conclusion: We hypothesize that low albumin level may increase the toxicity of diazoxide, possibly by increasing the free diazoxide concentration, as this compound is typically >90 % bound to plasma proteins.