• N. Engl. J. Med. · Jan 2015

    Trends in opioid analgesic abuse and mortality in the United States.

    • Richard C Dart, Hilary L Surratt, Theodore J Cicero, Mark W Parrino, S Geoff Severtson, Becki Bucher-Bartelson, and Jody L Green.
    • From the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center, Denver Health and Hospital Authority, Denver (R.C.D., S.G.S., B.B.-B., J.L.G.); the Center for Applied Research on Substance Use and Health Disparities, Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, FL (H.L.S.); the Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis (T.J.C.); and the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, New York (M.W.P.).
    • N. Engl. J. Med.. 2015 Jan 15;372(3):241-8.

    BackgroundThe use of prescription opioid medications has increased greatly in the United States during the past two decades; in 2010, there were 16,651 opioid-related deaths. In response, hundreds of federal, state, and local interventions have been implemented. We describe trends in the diversion and abuse of prescription opioid analgesics using data through 2013.MethodsWe used five programs from the Researched Abuse, Diversion, and Addiction-Related Surveillance (RADARS) System to describe trends between 2002 and 2013 in the diversion and abuse of all products and formulations of six prescription opioid analgesics: oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, fentanyl, morphine, and tramadol. The programs gather data from drug-diversion investigators, poison centers, substance-abuse treatment centers, and college students.ResultsPrescriptions for opioid analgesics increased substantially from 2002 through 2010 in the United States but then decreased slightly from 2011 through 2013. In general, RADARS System programs reported large increases in the rates of opioid diversion and abuse from 2002 to 2010, but then the rates flattened or decreased from 2011 through 2013. The rate of opioid-related deaths rose and fell in a similar pattern. Reported nonmedical use did not change significantly among college students.ConclusionsPostmarketing surveillance indicates that the diversion and abuse of prescription opioid medications increased between 2002 and 2010 and plateaued or decreased between 2011 and 2013. These findings suggest that the United States may be making progress in controlling the abuse of opioid analgesics. (Funded by the Denver Health and Hospital Authority.).

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    This article appears in the collection: Oxycodone.

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…