Study: More than 250K people expected to die from infective endocarditis by 2030

Researchers estimate that approximately 257,800 people are expected to die from infective endocarditis (IE) by 2030 with people who inject opioids at a greater risk, according to a study.

Researchers compared men with high frequency use with higher infection risk techniques compared to lower risk techniques for IE, and the likelihood of death as a result of IE by age 60.

For 20-year-old men the probability was 53.8% versus 3.7%; for 30-year-old men it was 51.4% versus 3.1%, and for 40-year-old men it was 44.5% versus 2.2%, respectively.

The authors suggested that “Adopting a harm reduction approach, including expansion of syringe service programs, to address injection behaviors could have a major impact on decreasing the mortality associated with the opioid epidemic.”

Reference
Barocas JA, Yazdi GF, Savinkina A, et al. Long-term infective endocarditis mortality associated with injection opioid use in the United States: a modeling study. Clin Infect Dis. 2020;ciaa1346, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa1346.