We nowadays observe a steadily increasing worldwide abuse of cocaine with medico legal and social consequences. To smuggle and hide these narcotics the gastrointestinal (GI) tract is often being used as a vehicle (1). The terms used for intracorporeal concealment of illicit drugs are «body packer», «body pusher «and «body stuffer» (2-4). Body packers swallow large bags (2-8cm) prior to cross international borders, in order to retrieve them after arrival. They are professional dealers with the main goal to transport narcotics over long distances, thus...

Patients We prospectively included 29 body stuffers admitted by the police to the emergency department from August 2009 to November 2010 because of suspected ingestion of CFP (mean age 31.9 years, 3 women). In 13 (44.83%) out of them cocaine-filled packets were detected in the digestive tract. Their number (range 1-25 per body stuffer) was then confirmed by a member of the emergency staff who had to collect and exactly analyse the faeces evacuated after the CT. Only after elimination of all the CFP detected...

The increase of ASIR technique significantly diminished the objective noise measured on the images (p<0.001). The analysis of adrenal gland (p=0.206) and the identification of the common bile duct (p=0.450) did not depend on the type of image reconstruction (FBP, 30% ASIR or 60% ASIR), neither did the time of reading the examinations (p=0.901) The overall sensitivity and specificity of all four readers for the detection of cocaine-filled packets (without taking account of the exact number) was 91.1% and 84.8%, respectively (Fig. 3, Fig. 4)....

Our study confirms that unenhanced MDCT is a useful and reproducible imaging modality for the detection and count of small ingested cocaine-filled packets (1-2cm). Nevertheless, MDCT always needs to be interpreted with caution, since several pitfalls exist. As to our knowledge, we have been the first working group comparing the CT results with the real standard of reference, which is the proof of the detected number ofCFP by faecal analysis. Our images with 30% and 60% ASIR allowed for a significant noise reduction compared to...

References Caruana DS, Weinbach B, Goerg D, Gardner LB. Cocaine packet ingestion. Diagnosis, management, and natural history. Ann Intern Med 1984; 100: 73-74 Gsell M, Perrig M, Eichelberger M, Chetterjee B, Stoll U, Stanga Z. Body-Packer & Body-Stuffer- eine medizinische Heraus-forderung. Praxis 2010:99(9): 533-544 Hierholzer J, CordesM, Tantow H, Keske U, Maurer J, Felix R. Drug smuggling by ingested cocaine-filled packages: conventional x-ray and ultrasound. Abdom Imaging 1995;20:333-338 Pollack Jr CV, Biggers DW, Carlton Jr FB, et al. Two crack cocaine body stuffers. Ann Emerg...

This prospective study has been performed by the department of diagnostic and interventional radiology of the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland.