Drugs associated with serum sickness and serum sickness–like reactions: A review of FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) data
Serum sickness (SS) is a type III hypersensitivity reaction that is induced by administration of foreign proteins, classically horse serum containing diphtheria antitoxin, and has been associated with antibiotics, biologics, vaccines and venoms.1-3 The onset of SS is classically delayed, up to 1 to 3 weeks from exposure, and symptoms include fever, polyarthralgia, and morbilliform or urticarial rash with end-organ involvement. Mechanistically, SS is thought to be mediated by immune complex deposition, which leads to complement activation and recruitment of neutrophils by interaction of immune complexes with Fc immunoglobulin G (IgG) receptors.