[Cocaine poisoning from transport of the drug in the gastrointestinal tract (the body-packer syndrome)].
Three days after arriving in Switzerland from Bolivia a 35-year-old man presented at a casualty department. He was anxious, agitated and hallucinating, and he expressed delusional ideas of being poisoned. As a general physical examination was without abnormal findings he was thought to suffer from a psychiatric disorder. It was only when he had evacuated in stool a long oval foreign body, packed in plastic sheeting and filled with a dark paste, that cocaine poisoning due to cocaine transport in the gastrointestinal tract (body packer syndrome) was suspected. Plain X-ray of the abdomen revealed numerous regular structures of poor X-ray contrast and the urine contained cocaine metabolites, confirming the tentative diagnosis. As the patient's state of consciousness deteriorated and he had a grand mal seizure, an emergency laparotomy was performed. 78 packages (two of them had opened) were removed by gastro- and caecotomy. Total cocaine weight was 650 g. He was discharged from hospital after 11 days, free of symptoms.
John
H
H
Department Chirurgie, Universitätskliniken des Kantonsspitals Basel.
Schoenenberger
R
R
Renner
N
N
Ritz
R
R
D000328:Adult; D001838:Bolivia / Q000208:ethnology; D003042:Cocaine / Q000506:poisoning*; D004064:Digestive System / Q000187:drug effects*; D004630:Emergencies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011041:Poisoning / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000628:therapy; D011605:Psychoses, Substance-Induced / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000628:therapy; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis; D013557:Switzerland
D003042:Cocaine
Cocain-Intoxikation durch Drogentransport im Gastrointestinaltrakt (Body-Packer-Syndrom).