A nightmare related to ecstasy intoxication: ST segment elevation

Abstract

3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy), which is a kind of synthetic amphetamine, is widely used in last years among young population. It is abused because of addiction and appliance to emergency service becaouse of that drug atrracts more and more attention. Twenty five year-old male patient without any other comorbidities, applied to the emergency room with chest pain and blurred vision. His chest pain was intermittent, did not spread to any aother location, and each time lastes 1-2 minutes. His physical examination was completely normal but his ecg revealed ST elevation in derivations of D1-aVL. When he was deeply questioned, he told that he had taken several pills of ectasy two hours before the admissin to the hospital. After that, cardiologists thought ecg changes might be due to vasospastic changes. That’s why they started to treat patient with nitrates. After appliance of nitrate his ECG became completely normal. We wanted to emphasize with our case report that whenever a young person with chest pain and without any comorbidities applies to emergency room, we should pay attention to probability of drug abuse and question them deeply. Drug abuse can lead mortal cardiac side effects.