Research
Case report: Purple urine bag syndrome
-
* Corresponding author: Joaquim P Ribeiro vanessaribeiro@vizzavi.pt
1 Director, Intensive Care Unit, Curry Cabral Hospital, Lisbon, Portugal
2 Consultant in Internal Medicine, Intensive Care Unit, Curry Cabral Hospital, Lisbon, Portugal
3 Resident in Internal Medicine, Curry Cabral Hospital, Lisbon, Portugal
Critical Care 2004, 8:R137-R138 doi:10.1186/cc2853
Published: 31 March 2004Abstract
Purple urine bag syndrome (PUBS) was first reported in 1978. PUBS is rare, occurs predominantly in constipated women, chronically catheterized and associated with some bacterial urinary infections that produce sulphatase/phosphatase. The etiology is due to indigo (blue) and indirubin (red) or to their mixture that becomes purple. A chain reaction begins in the gastrointestinal tract with tryptophan as described in the article.