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Pulmonary Complications of Intravenous Drug Abuse: Experience at an Inner-City Hospital
Section snippets
METHODS
During the 22 months from July 1985 through April 1987, the Georgetown Pulmonary Service performed 423 inpatient consultations at the District of Columbia General Hospital, an inner-city facility providing care to mainly indigent patients. We reviewed these charts and identified 53 patients with history of IV drug abuse. The records of 51 of these 53 patients were available for final analysis. Sex, age, race, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibody status, and pulmonary diagnosis were
Demographics
The patients in this series were predominantly black males in the fourth decade of life (Table 2). All were heroin abusers, and several injected cocaine and amphetamines as well. None had sickle cell anemia. Because of the retrospective nature of this study, data on smoking history, tuberculin status, and other past problems were not consistently available from all charts.
Of the IV drug abusers seen in pulmonary consultation, 40 of 51 (78 percent) were tested for HIV antibody, and 25 of 40
DISCUSSION
The 51 patients in this series demonstrate that intravenous drug abusers continue to develop traditional infectious complications in large numbers. Many of our cases are remarkably similar to early reports of septic pulmonary infarction6 and pneumonia7 in heroin users. Contaminated needles and drug supplies continue to result in hematogenous seeding of the lung parenchyma.
IV drug abusers are at higher risk for tuberculosis, both because of drug use alone8 and because of HIV-related
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Drug-Induced Pulmonary Disease
2015, Murray and Nadel's Textbook of Respiratory Medicine: Volume 1,2, Sixth EditionInfections in Injection Drug Users
2014, Mandell, Douglas, and Bennett's Principles and Practice of Infectious DiseasesThe large spectrum of pulmonary complications following illicit drug use: Features and mechanisms
2013, Chemico-Biological InteractionsCitation Excerpt :Without adapted antibiotics, aspiration pneumonia may progress to lung abscess or emphysema. In heroin addicts, aspiration pneumonia represents the second cause of intensive care unit (ICU) admission after central nervous system (CNS) depression and greatly contributes to mortality from ARDS and septic shock [11]. In illegal drug users, community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) including tuberculosis, is more frequent than in the absence of drug abuse due to lower social background and possible drug-induced impairment in local and systemic immunity [12–14].
Predictive factors for recurrence of pulmonary tuberculosis in Tunisia: A retrospective study
2012, Revue des Maladies RespiratoiresBullous emphysema associated with drug abuse
2010, Revista Portuguesa de Pneumologia
Manuscript received September 17; revision accepted January 25.