Cocktail-Coronary Care

To the Editor: We would like to report an unusual complication of the use of intravenous nitroglycerin. We treated a 73-year-old man who had acute onset of chest pain, diaphoresis, and 5-mm ST-segment elevation in electrocardiogram Leads V₁ to V₄. He required increasing doses of intravenous nitroglycerin. After 10 hours and a maximum dose of 1500 μg per minute the patient had relief of the chest pain and a blood pressure of 130/90 mm Hg. Eight hours later he was stuporous and had the strong scent of alcohol on his breath. The blood alcohol level was 178.