Clinical casePenile and scrotal skin necrosis after injection of crushed buprenorphine tabletsNécrose cutanée du scrotum et du pénis après injection de comprimés écrasés de buprénorphine
Section snippets
Case report
A 31-year-old white man, with a 10-year history of heroin abuse, presented with a black necrotic eschar involving the scrotum and the base of the penis and painful ulcerations of the inguinal folds. He has been treated by oral buprenorphine chlorhydrate tablets (Subutex®) for a year. He acknowledged that the day before the consultation, he had injected crushed buprenorphine tablets into the right inguinal fold and experienced sudden pain immediately after injection. He denied any direct
Discussion
Repeated intravenous drug injections are usually followed by progressive sclerosis of the peripheral veins, which prompts drug abusers to choose new sites for injection, and the groin (the so-called “groin hit”) is a well-known alternative. Some abusers may use the femoral vessels routinely for years before any complication occur [3]. They may, however, deliberately inject directly into the femoral artery, which is the cause of several cases of penoscrotal necrosis after heroin injection into
Conflicts of interest
none.
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