Intravenous drug use carries an increased health risk but also the risks of social or criminal consequences that the user has to face. Injecting drug use is most often associated with opiates and opioids, although in some countries, the injecting use of stimulants such as amphetamines and methamphetamines or cocaine is also common. In Slovakia, injecting drug use is mainly associated with high-risk methamphetamine use and high-risk opioid use. The most serious complications of injecting drug use include infectious complications caused by HIV, hepatitis B, and C viruses and infective endocarditis. This paper aims to present the variability of morphological findings in selected fatal cases of infective endocarditis in injecting drug users. There are three cases of women aged 26, 30, and 24 who died as a result of complications of infective endocarditis of the tricuspid, aortal and mitral valve. The common factor in all three cases was the development of a septic condition caused by the same etiological agent – Staphylococcus aureus. The presented fatal consequences of injecting drug use emphasize the need to take into consideration the risk of serious cardiovascular complications in the clinical patient management of injecting drug users.

Key words: problem drug use – injecting drug use – infective endocarditis – Staphylococcus aureus – sepsis – morphology