CONTEXT Hot weather taxes cardiovascular function and is associated with increased deaths from heart disease. Cocaine can cause hypertension, tachycardia, coronary vasospasm, arrhythmias, and increased core temperature. OBJECTIVE To determine the association between mortality from cocaine overdose and hot weather. SETTING New York, NY. DESIGN Retrospective review of medical examiner cases...

OBJECTIVE Drugs of abuse have been known in many cultures and geographical zones, and also in Poland the extent of substance abuse has been increasing. MATERIAL AND METHODS This report refers to patients treated for poisonings with street drugs at the Toxicology Unit (TU), Łódź, Poland during the period 1993-2008. The data to be analyzed was obtained from medical files of all patients treated...

BACKGROUND Tapentadol is a centrally acting opioid analgesic, with a dual mode of action, as a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor and an agonist of the μ-opioid receptor (MOR). Tapentadol is used for the management of musculoskeletal pain, and neuropathic pain associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy. CASE REPORT A 32-year-old woman attended hospital for evaluation of an intractable headac...

toxicology, as a multidisciplinary field, provides career opportunities for graduates with medical, or veterinarian, pharmacological, pharmaceutical, biological, microbiological, molecular biological, chemical, biochemical, and genetic backgrounds. today, however, specialists with a university degree in toxicology or a postgraduate training in toxicology have a clear advantage. postgraduate dip...

OBJECTIVE To prospectively assess if opiate antagonist treatment or the opiate-free status could reverse opiate-related vasculopathy. DESIGN Longitudinal Open Observational, Serial 'N of One', over 6.5 years under various treatment conditions: opiate dependence, naltrexone and opiate-free. SETTING Primary care, Australia. PARTICIPANTS 20 opiate-dependent patients (16 males: 16 cases of bu...

Opiate reward memories are powerful triggers for compulsive opiate-seeking behaviors. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) is an important structure for the processing of opiate-related associative memories and is functionally linked to the mesolimbic dopamine (DA) pathway. Transmission through intra-BLA DA D1-like and D2-like receptors independently modulates the formation of opiate reward memories ...

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there are differences in overall and cause-specific mortality rates of opiate users in maintenance treatment and of opiate users not in any drug treatment program in Vienna, Austria. A cohort of opiate-users enrolled in maintenance treatment in Vienna and a cohort of individuals involved in opiate-related emergencies from 1995 to 1997 were re...

Background As opiate use has increased, there has been a corresponding increase in the number of opiate users presenting for treatment. Questions regarding the challenges of treating opiate users in residential treatment remain largely unanswered. This study seeks to determine what, if any, meaningful differences exist between opiate and non-opiate users, as well as within opiate users who ente...

In a recent issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Medical Toxicology (APJMT), the importance of empowering medical toxicology in the Asia Pacific Region has been discussed. In the editorial by Dr. Afshari, it has been stated that national societies of medical toxicology are important infrastructure for the development of medical toxicology, and the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Toxicology ...

INTRODUCTION Recent studies (Gold et al, 1978; Washton et al, 1980a) showing that the non-opiate antihypertensive agent, clonidine hydrochloride, suppresses signs and symptoms of opiate withdrawal, have suggested that clonidine and similar drugs might be useful in the clinical management of opiate detoxification. The fact that clonidine is not an opiate drug and does not itself produce addictio...