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Abuse of opiates and other pain relievers has skyrocketed in the U.S. and elsewhere, leading to increased morbidity and mortality in an otherwise healthy, young population. Heroin-related overdose deaths quadrupled from 2002 to 2014. Intravenous drug use, with its concomitant needle-sharing practices, has long been known to spread certain diseases and to cause intravascular infections, including endocarditis.
Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and elsewhere have now used data from all 128 hospitals in North Carolina, collected by the State's Center for Health Statistics, to describe the marked increase in infective endocarditis hospitalizations in patients with the additional diagnosis of drug dependence. During …