• Esmaeil Hajinasrollah, Amir Zamani, Hadi Mirhashemi, Bahaor Oshidary, Mohsen Soori, Fariborz Rashnoo, Hassan Peyvandi, and Mohammad Amin Shahrbaf.
• Departemnt of General Surgery Loghman Medical Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
• Arch Iran Med. 2020 Aug 1; 23 (8): 542-547.

BackgroundThe incidence of smuggling and illegal transport of substances by internal concealment, also known as body packing, is increasing. The clinical approach to body packers has changed significantly over the past two decades. In addition, the mortality of body packers is an important issue in patient management. The purpose of the current study is to determine the statistics and mortality related to body packing.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, all body packer patients who referred to Loghman Hakim hospital were evaluated from 2010 to 2017. Demographic characteristics, findings of clinical imaging, treatment, and outcome of the patients were recorded. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 21.ResultsA total of 303 patients were enrolled in the study after the diagnosis of body packing by abdominal CT scanning without contrast. Conservative treatment including whole bowel irrigation (WBI) accompanied by close monitoring was done for 78% (n = 236) of patients; moreover, 26 patients (8.5%) underwent surgery after WBI, and 41 patients (13.5%) underwent surgery without bowel irrigation. Mortality was observed in eight patients (2.7%) five of whom (62.5%) died before surgery and had the clinical manifestation of crystal (methamphetamine) and cannabis toxicity. Furthermore, three patients (37.5%) died due to the complications of surgery such as gastrointestinal leakage of an abdominal abscess.ConclusionConservative treatment seems to be better for the management of body packers. In addition, it is necessary to monitor patients for possible signs and symptoms of intoxication and gastrointestinal obstruction.© 2020 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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