Cardiac Complaints Encountered After Use of Street Drugs: A Review of their Cardiac Toxicity Mechanism

Feriyde Çalışkan Tur*, Ibrahim Toker, Orkun Unek, Turgay Yilmaz Kilic, Murat Yesilaras and Ozgur Karcioglu

Cardiac Complaints Encountered After Use of Street Drugs: A Review of their Cardiac Toxicity Mechanism.

Since street drug usage has become widespread, emergency department admissions of such cases and
complications developing after substance use are observed with an increasing frequency. Some of these are cases with severe cardiac complaints similar to the presentation of routine cardiac emergencies.

However, some patients can hide the fact that they used a substance, which leads their underestimation as
simple cardiac emergency cases without substance use. Moreover, development of cardiac problems associated with SD use is important since they may be of a type that is not commonly observed in literature.

This research encountered cardiac complaints due to SD use for the 1st time or by addiction and in addition, important
cases that were emerged different than in literature are defined.

The study was conducted as a single center study; hence, the results cannot necessarily be generalized to other EDs or other
settings. Additionally, the same physicians performed all examinations within a year, also affecting the external validity.

The advantage of this was, however, a consistent examination including cardiac procedures giving rise to collecting data about cardiac intensive care unit admissions of SD users. Blood or urine work-up was not performed to verify and characterize SD use, since resources were not available in the present hospital.

Nonetheless, assessment of individuals using self-reports is cost-effective and is fairly accurate. The frequency of cardiac complications by SD users is not high.

Emerg Med Open J. 2016; 3(1): 1-5. doi: 10.17140/EMOJ-3-130

 

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