Kratom-Associated Mixed Cholestatic-Hepatocellular Liver Injury in a Patient With Long COVID: A case Report

Mitragyna speciosa (commonly known as kratom) has both opioid and stimulant-like effects. Recently, Thailand decriminalized the possession and sale of kratom which led people in many areas to seek income from the sale of kratom at a time of widespread unemployment due to COVID-19. Here, we report a patient with post-COVID syndrome who developed a mixed cholestatic-hepatocellular liver injury secondary to kratom.

A 23-year-old Thai man was seen for an evaluation of fatigue and nausea which was soon followed by pruritus, dark urine and jaundice. The patient had no known underlying disease but had been treated with mild COVID-19 pneumonia in the past 2 months. He reported taking kratom recreationally for 2 weeks as a treatment for his post-COVID insomnia. Kratom was purchased from a friend and used in a homemade iced cocktail called "4 × 100" consisting of Coca-Cola, tea made from boiled kratom leaves, and diphenhydramine-containing cough syrup which has been popular in Southernmost provinces of Thailand. His lab workup showed his total bilirubin to be 10.6 mg/dL, aspartate aminotransferase was 642 U/L, and alanine aminotransferase was 1635 U/L. Extensive workups including viral etiologies was negative. Abdominal ultrasound revealed normal liver and no cirrhosis. The case was managed conservatively for 5 days in the hospital by giving intravenous fluid and stopping all medications. Urine toxicology screening confirmed the presence of mitragynine and diphenhydramine. He was in a stable condition with normalized liver function tests at 3 months after discharge.

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to health consequences and this case highlights the importance of kratom as potential cause of acute liver injury. Future studies should accumulate further case series and identify kratom-user subgroups or the polydrug patterns of kratom use that are at heightened risk of severe liver injury.