Drug Use-Associated Infective Endocarditis Up 2007 to 2017

From 2007 to 2017 there was an increase in drug-use associated infective endocarditis (DUA-IE) hospitalizations and valve surgeries, according to a study published online Dec. 4 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Asher J. Schranz, M.D., from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues examined hospitalization trends for DUA-IE in a 10-year analysis of a statewide hospital discharge database for North Carolina hospitals. The authors sought to identify annual trends in IE admissions and IE hospitalizations with valve surgery, stratified by patients' drug use status.

The researchers found that 11 percent of the 22,825 IE hospitalizations were for DUA-IE. Valve surgery was performed in 7 percent of 1,655 IE hospitalizations, including 285 (17 percent) for DUA-IE. There were increases seen in annual DUA-IE hospitalizations (from 0.92 to 10.95 per 100,000 persons) and DUA-IE hospitalizations with surgery (from 0.10 to 1.38 per 100,000 persons). Forty-two percent of IE valve surgeries were performed in patients with DUA-IE in the final year. Patients with DUA-IE were younger, more often female and white, and were mainly insured by Medicaid or uninsured, compared with other surgical patients with IE.

"Drug use-associated IE is a critical, emerging public health issue that is affecting the lives of young persons, burdening health systems and public insurance payers, and fundamentally reshaping the epidemiology and management of endocarditis," the authors write.

Two authors disclosed financial ties to the biopharmaceutical and medical technology industries.

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