Sartan-induced interstitial lung disease

BACKGROUND: Lung toxicity of angiotensin receptor blockers (sartans) have very seldom been reported in the literature despite their wide use. We here report a case of interstitial lung disease elicited by sartans, with two episodes induced by two different sartans at 10 years of interval. CASE PRESENTATION: In 2012, eprosartan was the very likely cause of a drug induced interstitial lung disease in a 60 year old man. Indeed, his symptoms, consisting in a MMRC2 dyspnea and recurrent hemoptysis, completely disappeared after the removal of this drug. When the circumstances rendered it necessary to start another angiotensin receptor blocker (namely valsartan) ten years later we did not expect the same reaction to occur given among other things a very poor literature on the topic. After a few months with this medication, he however developed similar symptoms and a Chest CT imaging that was comparable to what he had in 2012.This time also the clinical picture resolved completely when the sartan was stopped. CONCLUSION: We report this first case of a drug induced interstitial lung disease induced by two different angiotensin receptor blockers (sartans) with a new drug challenge ten years after the first one.