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David Fleiss
Fourth-year medical student Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons New York

JAMA. 1975;232(11):1126.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

A 59-year-old man, addicted to intramuscular injections of pentazocine for at least four years, was recently admitted to the Neurological Institute of New York with marked induration of the deltoid, gluteus maximus, quadriceps, and gastrocnemius muscles bilaterally. As reported by Oh et al (231:271, 1975), "the considerable limitation of motion due to the fibrotic muscle contracture, and the minimal weakness of involved muscles" typifies pentazocine myopathy, and this was true of him. His problem was sclerosis, not spasm or weakness. Both his muscle enzyme content and collagen vascular test results were normal. The diagnosis of pentazocine-induced myopathy was suggested when the performance of an otherwise unremarkable electromyogram was hindered in the affected muscles by an extensive fibrosis that made needle placement difficult.

This case is of particular interest for two reasons: (1) a muscle biopsy specimen of the thoracic paraspinal area showed the same extreme fibrosis as . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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