Musculoskeletal and Neurological Manifestations of Recreational Drug Abuse

This article reviews the radiologic findings of recreational drug abuse. Patients with drug abuse often present with a spectrum of related multisystem abnormalities that can range from soft tissue or vascular injury via direct needle penetration to septic emboli, abscesses, septic arthritis, infarct, and hemorrhage. After providing a brief overview of popular routes of administration, we emphasize common and uncommon imaging findings of drug abuse in a system-by-system fashion. A case-based review of multisystem complications from recreational drug use is provided. In this first article of a 2-part series, emphasis is placed on the musculoskeletal and neurological systems.