Prevalence of rhabdomyolysis in drug deaths

Abstract Rhabdomyolysis has repeatedly been reported as a possible consequence of illicit drug consumption especially in clinical literature. In order to investigate the prevalence of rhabdomyolysis in cases of drug deaths, immunohistochemical staining of kidney sections with a myoglobin antibody was performed at 103 consecutive fatal drug poisonings. The control group consisted of 107 unselected forensic autopsies. With regard to the presence of intratubular myoglobin, 33% of the study group were categorized as “strongly positive”, 17.5% as “slightly positive” and 49.5% as “negative”. No single substance showed a particularly high incidence of rhabdomyolysis nor were there correlations to special combinations of substances. In the control group a “strongly positive” result after myoglobin staining was observed in only 10.3% of 107 cases, a “slightly positive” result in 13.1% and a “negative” result in 76.6%. The findings suggest that rhabdomyolysis is a frequent consequence of illicit drug consumption and that it is not promoted by a single factor, but by a combination of several factors.