Sclerosing peritonitis due to practolol simulating an ovarian tumour.

A 68 YEAR OLD married woman was admitted to the Ulster Hospital, Belfast in October 1975 with a one month history of generalized crampy abdominal pain, abdominal swelling and increasing constipation. She had a myocardial infarction in 1969 and a hemiplegia in 1972 and had recovered well from each. She had been on treatment with practolol for three years for hypertension. In 1974 she attended an eye department because her eyes had "dried up" and kerato-conjunctivitis sicca was diagnosed. There was epithelial damage to both cornea with a deep central ulcer in the left cornea and visual acuity was reduced to less than 50 per cent in each eye. Practolol was thought to be responsible and was stopped. Her eyes improved with local treatment but tear secretion in the left eye remained very reduced.