Erythromycin-induced dynamic ileus?

A 39-year-old man and a 79-year-old woman developed dynamic ileus soon after erythromycin stearate was administered for a respiratory tract infection. Both had had prior uncomplicated abdominal operations: the man, vagotomy and pyloroplasty for bleeding duodenal ulcer, 3 years earlier; and the woman, an appendectomy some 44 years before. The temporal association with erythromycin therapy, resolution of signs and symptoms when the drug was stopped, an uneventful recovery, and the absence of other causes, suggest a possible role of erythromycin in the pathogenesis of dynamic ileus in these patients. Disturbed gastrointestinal motility patterns caused by erythromycin, in the presence of structural changes of the alimentary tract due to prior surgical procedures, may have contributed and we review these events.