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Lupus anticoagulant and ANCA associated thrombotic vasculopathy due to cocaine contaminated with levamisole: a case report and review of the literature

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Abstract

A 2010 US report recently detected the presence of levamisole in greater than 77 % of seized cocaine samples. A syndrome of retiform purpura, often involving ears and flanks, with vasculopathy or vasculitis on biopsy, associated with anti-nuclear cytoplasmic antibodies as well as antiphospholipid antibodies, previously associated with therapeutic use of levamisole has now re-emerged, and is associated with cocaine adulterated with levamisole. Patients with this unusual constellation of signs and laboratory findings should be questioned about exposure to cocaine.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Internal Medicine, The Reading Hospital and Medical Center, 6th Avenue and Spruce Street, West Reading, PA, 19611, USA

    Shuchi Gulati & Anthony A. Donato

  2. Department of Medicine, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, USA

    Anthony A. Donato

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  1. Shuchi Gulati
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  2. Anthony A. Donato
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Correspondence to Shuchi Gulati.

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Gulati, S., Donato, A.A. Lupus anticoagulant and ANCA associated thrombotic vasculopathy due to cocaine contaminated with levamisole: a case report and review of the literature. J Thromb Thrombolysis 34, 7–10 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11239-012-0711-0

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