• Am J Emerg Med · Mar 2011

    Validation of a 6-hour observation period for cocaine body stuffers.

    • Maria Moreira, Jennie Buchanan, and Kennon Heard.
    • Denver Health Hospital and Authority, Denver, CO 80204, USA.
    • Am J Emerg Med. 2011 Mar 1;29(3):299-303.

    AbstractOften, patients are brought in to the emergency department after ingesting large amounts of cocaine in an attempt to conceal it. This act is known as body stuffing. The observation period required to recognize potential toxic adverse effects in these patients is not well described in the literature. We sought to validate a treatment algorithm for asymptomatic cocaine body stuffers using a 6-hour observation period by observing the clinical course of cocaine body stuffers over a 24-hour period. A retrospective chart review was performed on all patients evaluated for witnessed or suspected stuffing over 2 years using a standardized protocol. One hundred six patients met final inclusion criteria as adult cocaine stuffers. No patients developed life-threatening symptoms, and no patients died during observation. In our medical setting, stuffers could be discharged after a 6-hour observation period if there was either complete resolution or absence of clinical symptoms.Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…