Sclerosing Peritonitis and Propranolol

Sclerosing peritonitis developed in a 56-year-old white man who had been receiving propranolol (320 mg/day) for hypertension and angina pectoris since December 1976. The patient had abdominal pain, loss of weight, pleural effusion, and gastrointestinal hemorrhage. Laparotomy revealed extensive adhesions which were so remarkable that the organs were fixed. Infectious and neoplastic causes of fibrosing peritoneal inflammation were excluded. To my knowledge the development of sclerosing peritonitis with extensive colonic involvement and colonic hemorrhage has been been described previously with therapy with propranolol.