Contemporary management of drug-packers.docVIP

World Journal of Emergency Surgery BioMedCentral Case report Open Access Contemporary management of drug-packers J Kelly*, M Corrigan, RA Cahill and HP Redmond Address: Department of Surgery, Cork University Hospital, Wilton, Cork, Ireland Email: J Kelly* - jukelly@rcsi.ie; M Corrigan - mark@surgent.ie; RA Cahill - RCahill@rcsi.ie; HP Redmond - redmondhp@shb.ie * Corresponding author Published: 20 April 2007 Received: 18 December 2006 Accepted: 20 April 2007 World Journal of Emergency Surgery 2007, 2:9 doi:10.1186/1749-7922-2-9 This article is available from: /content/2/1/9 ? 2007 Kelly et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Experience with management of drug-packers (mules) is variable among different centres. However, despite a recorded increase in drug trafficking in general, as yet, no unified, clear guidelines exist to guide the medical management of those who only occasionally encounter these individuals. We describe our recent experience with this growing problem and discuss the most salient points concerning the contemporary management of body packers. Our recent experience demonstrates that type IV packages may now be managed conservatively for the most part. Background order to reveal the contents (see Figure 2) – these repre- sent Type IV packages (see Table 1) [1]. He underwent monitoring with serial plain radiology in order to ensure complete transit of the capsules (34 in total). This took 96 hours during which time he remained entirely asympto- matic. He was subsequently discharged to the care of the police. Experience with management of drug-packers (mules) is variable among different centres. However, despite a recorded