Research reveals a sharp increase in strokes related to infection due to an epidemic of opioids

According to a preliminary study presented in Honolulu at the 2019 International Stroke Conference of the American Stroke Association, an opioid epidemic fuels a sharp increase in the number of hospitalizations related to an infection, a world-leading meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science and treatment of cancer disease.

This study will also be published simultaneously in the journal of the American Heart Association Stroke.

"Our findings reinforce the urgency of tackling the underlying epidemic of opioids in the United States and suggest that people need to be more aware of the fact that stroke can be a complication devastating opioid injection, "said Setareh Salehi Omran, MD, lead author of the study. and researcher in vascular neurology at Weill Cornell Medical Center and Columbia University Medical Center in New York.

The injection of opioids, such as heroin, can introduce into the body bacteria that cross the bloodstream to infect and inflam the heart valves, a condition called infectious endocarditis.

"The incidence of opioid-related infectious endocarditis has increased over the last 20 years, especially in younger patients," Omran said.

Infectious endocarditis can lead to a stroke if clumps of infected tissue come loose and move to the blood vessels of the brain and block them. This is the first study to examine trends in the incidence of stroke as a complication of opioid-related cardiac infection.

With the aid of a national database on inpatients, researchers identified US residents hospitalized from 1993 to 2015 with a combination of opioid abuse, dementia, and Infective endocarditis and any type of stroke. They found:

• 5,283 patients were hospitalized as a result of an opioid-related infectious endocarditis.
• Hospitalizations due to opioid-related infectious endocarditis increased from 2.4 / 10 million people in 1993 to 18.8 / 10 million people in 2015.
• The hospitalization rate following a stroke did not increase significantly between 1993 and 2008, but between 2008 and 2015, the rate of hospitalizations as a result of Stroke has increased significantly by 20% per year, coinciding with the worsening of the opioid epidemic.
• The increases included both the shots and the shots.
• Annual hospitalization rates due to stroke have increased dramatically in non-Hispanic white patients in the northeastern and southern United States.
• Although stroke hospitalizations increased by age and bad, the largest increases were in women and under 45 in the last decade.

"The increase in the number of hospitalizations for stroke-related infectious endocarditis badociated with opioids parallels that of complications and deaths related to heroin overdose, which tripled between 2010 and 2015. I think that efforts to minimize prescription opioid abuse are important to combat this public health problem, given the highly addictive nature of opioids, some people may turn to alternatives cheaper, such as injectable opioids like heroin, "said Omran.

The study is based on an administrative database, which makes it possible to clbadify diseases by mistake and to take into account twice the number of people hospitalized more than once a year.