Dual diagnosis: approaches to the treatment of people with dual mental health and drug abuse problems

The author reports his personal experience of allergy to antibiotics following anaesthesia. Over a period of four years, corresponding to 5,500 patients who had consulted for reasons of allergy, 32 patients presented per-operative anaphylactic accident of which 5 were attributed to antibiotics (about 15%). Three of these accidents were attributed to cephalosporin, 1 to vancomycin and 1 to erythromicin.