Rare but relevant: The injection of tablet preparations and pulmonary hypertension.

Abstract

Intravascular injection of dissolved medicinal preparations such as crushed tablets is associated with a risk of injecting particulate material into the vasculature. This particulate material will naturally pass to the lungs where it will be largely filtered out in the pulmonary vascular bed, and in turn, it can result in a range of pathological processes in the lungs including pulmonary arterial hypertension, granulomatous lung disease, and pulmonary fibrosis. On rare occasions, a rapid increase in pulmonary vascular resistance can result in sudden death of the injecting drug user.