Hospitalizations for infective endocarditis associated with drug abuse doubled in the United States from 2002 to 2016, in a trend investigators call “alarming,” and link to a concurrent rise in opioid abuse.
Patients tend to be younger, poorer white males, according to findings published online in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
For their research, Amer N. Kadri, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic and colleagues looked at records for nearly a million hospitalizations for infective endocarditis (IE) in the National Inpatient Sample registry. All U.S. regions saw increases in drug abuse–linked cases of IE as a share of IE hospitalizations. Incidence of drug abuse–associated IC rose from 48 cases/100,000 population in 2002 to 79/100,000 in 2016. The Midwest saw the highest rate of change, with an annual percent increase of 4.9%.
While most IE hospitalizations in the study cohort were of white men (including 68% for drug-linked cases), the drug abuse–related cases were younger (median age, 38 vs. 70 years for nondrug-related IE), and more likely male (55.5% vs. 50%). About 45% of the drug-related cases were in people receiving Medicaid, and 42% were in the lowest quartile of median household income.
The drug abuse cases had fewer renal and cardiovascular comorbidities, compared with the nondrug cases, but were significantly more likely to present with HIV, hepatitis C, alcohol abuse, and liver disease. Inpatient mortality was lower among the drug-linked cases – 6% vs. 9% – but the drug cases saw significantly more cardiac or valve surgeries, longer hospital stays, and higher costs.
“Hospitalizations for IE have been increasing side by side with the opioid epidemic,” the investigators wrote in their analysis. “The opioid crisis has reached epidemic levels, and now drug overdoses have been the leading cause of injury-related death in the U.S. Heroin deaths had remained relatively low from 1999 until 2010 whereas it then increased threefold from 2010-2015.” The analysis showed a rise in drug abuse–associated IE “that corresponds to this general period.” The findings argue, the investigators said, for better treatment for opioid addiction after hospitalization and greater efforts to make drug rehabilitation available after discharge. The researchers described as a limitation of their study the use of billing codes that changed late in the study period, increasing detection of drug abuse cases after 2015. They reported no outside funding or conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Kadri AN et al. J Am Heart Assoc. 2019 Sep 18.