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Introduction: Salbutamol is a moderately selective beta-2-adrenergic agonist. Various side effects can occur because of beta-1 and beta-2 receptor activation. Due to the large volume of distribution, it is not considered dialyzable. Case Presentation: A patient with salbutamol intoxication, which developed as a result of a medical error in a patient with sepsis, Down syndrome, and liver cirrhosis, is presented. Initial treatment was partially successful and antibiotic adjustments were made. After his respiratory failure worsened, the patient needed non-invasive ventilation, and previously undiagnosed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was suspected. He was prescribed intravenous methylprednisolone but accidently received 5 mg of salbutamol (albuterol), which led to immediate severe arrhythmic tachycardia with hemodynamic collapse. After unsuccessful cardioversion and treatment with landiolol infusion, salvage hemodialysis was commenced to decrease suspectedly highly elevated serum salbutamol levels. After 30 min, sinus rhythm with normocardia was observed. After the hemodialysis termination, no rebound tachycardia was noted, but due to severe septic shock, the hypotension was ongoing and vasoactive medications were adjusted. However, the measured levels of plasma salbutamol and data from literature do not support the view that hemodialysis was the cause of the described improvement: the total amount of the drug cleared was very small (2.8% of total dose). Conclusion: Our results confirm a large volume of salbutamol distribution; the measured levels are within observed therapeutic levels; and the measured half-life time during hemodialysis (3.1 h) is comparable to observed half-life times in therapeutic settings. The observed favorable clinical benefit associated with dialysis may be fortuitous, highlighting potential bias toward positive clinical outcomes and unproven ("salvage") therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Cannabis is the most common recreational drug worldwide and synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists are currently the largest group of new psychoactive substances. The aim of this study was to compare the clinical features and outcomes of lone acute cannabis toxicity with lone acute synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonist toxicity in a large series of presentations to European emergency departments between 2013-2020., Methods: Self-reported drug exposure, clinical, and outcome data were extracted from the European Drug Emergencies Network Plus which is a surveillance network that records data on drug-related emergency department presentations to 36 centres in 24 European countries. Cannabis exposure was considered the control in all analyses. To compare the lone cannabis and lone synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonist groups, univariate analysis using chi squared testing was used for categorical variables and non-parametric Mann-Whitney U- testing for continuous variables. Statistical significance was defined as a P value of <0.05., Results: Between 2013-2020 there were 54,314 drug related presentations of which 2,657 were lone cannabis exposures and 503 lone synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonist exposures. Synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonist presentations had statistically significantly higher rates of drowsiness, coma, agitation, seizures and bradycardia at the time of presentation. Cannabis presentations were significantly more likely to have palpitations, chest pain, hypertension, tachycardia, anxiety, vomiting and headache., Discussion: Emergency department presentations involving lone synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonist exposures were more likely to have neuropsychiatric features and be admitted to a psychiatric ward, and lone cannabis exposures were more likely to have cardiovascular features. Previous studies have shown variability in the acute toxicity of synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists compared with cannabis but there is little comparative data available on lone exposures. There is limited direct comparison in the current literature between lone synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonist and lone cannabis exposure, with only two previous poison centre series and two clinical series. Whilst this study is limited by self-report being used to identify the drug(s) involved in the presentations, previous studies have demonstrated that self-report is reliable in emergency department presentations with acute drug toxicity., Conclusion: This study directly compares presentations with acute drug toxicity related to the lone use of cannabis or synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists. It supports previous findings of increased neuropsychiatric toxicity from synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists compared to cannabis and provides further data on cardiovascular toxicity in lone cannabis use.