News: Opioid use disorder plays significant role in many sepsis cases

Nearly two million adults are hospitalized with sepsis annually. Of those, roughly 2% had opioid use disorder, according to a Sepsis Alliance Institute webinar featuring Chanu Rhee, MD, MPH, associate hospital epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School, along with Simeon Kimmel, MD, MA, attending physician at Boston Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at Boston University.

“We are talking about 30,000 to 40,000 opioid use disorder patients who are hospitalized with sepsis each year,” said Rhee in a discussion with HealthLeaders.

Primary elements leading to sepsis among opioid users include infections at the injection site, contaminated syringes, breakdown of skin tissues leading to infection, as well as blood stream infections and pneumonias, Kimmel explained.

“It is always a challenge looking for the warning signs of sepsis. There is no one perfect or sensitive sign. You have to put things together in a constellation of symptoms and signs to get a diagnosis. It can be particularly challenging in patients with opioid use disorder,” Rhee said.

Editor’s note: This interview was conducted by HealthLeaders and originally appeared here.