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Testosterone and cocaine: vascular
toxicity of their concomitant abuse.
Togna GI, Togna AR, Graziani M, Franconi M.
Abstract [Full Text] [PDF]
Abstract
Over the last few years, several studies have
described an increase in the use of anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS). More
important, frequency of AAS use was significantly associated with frequency
of psychotropic drug use, such as cocaine.Since information is not available
on the effects of their concomitant abuse, and taking into account that
cocaine and testosterone, when singly abused, are known to induce severe
adverse effects on vascular system, our purpose was to evaluate in vitro the
combined effect of these drugs on platelet and endothelial functions.
Results show that testosterone, at
concentrations not exerting any appreciably acute effects on their own, is
capable of potentiating the cocaine effect on endothelial and platelet
functions, indicating that concomitant use of testosterone and cocaine could
result in enhancement of the thrombotic risk ascribed to these drugs.
Dipartimento di Fisiologia Umana e
Farmacologia (Istituto di Farmacologia Medica), Universita di Roma "La
Sapienza", P.le A. Moro, 5-00185, Rome, Italy.
Citation: Thromb Res. 2003 Feb 15;109(4):195-201. [PubMed]
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