Addiction Therapy Initiated Rarely for Injecting Drug Users with Infectious Endocarditis

The U.S. is experiencing an epidemic of opiate addiction, including injection drug use. Injection drug users are at increased risk for infectious endocarditis (IE) and have a higher incidence of recurrent IE and higher mortality than the general population. To provide data on addiction therapy among injection drug users with IE during hospitalization, researchers retrospectively reviewed 102 cases of IE associated with injection drug use from 2004 through 2014 at a single, large academic medical center.

Of the 102 patients, 50 were subsequently readmitted for 131 additional hospitalizations. Injection drug use was documented as occurring in 42 instances of readmission and recurrent IE in 14. The median time to readmission was 36 days. A plan…