AHA past president, Ralph L. Sacco, MD, MS, FAHA, FAAN offers perspective (via Skype) on ISC 19 abstract 8. He is Chairman, Department of Neurology; Olemberg Family Chair in Neurological Disorders; Miller Professor of Neurology, Public Health Sciences, Human Genetics and Neurosurgery; Executive Director, Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute; Senior Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Science; Director, Clinical and Translational Science Institute; Chief of Neurology Service, Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida; President, American Academy of Neurology 2017-19.
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"They used the National Inpatient Survey, which relies on the data collected in hospitals. Most of the time when you're talking about opioid injection, it may be related to heroin and other abuse drugs. It's still hard to know from this abstract and the information what specific agent people are injecting. When we talk about the opioid epidemic in the US right now, however, we know a lot of it is due to using prescription opioids, which are a little different. They're not the ones that we're injecting. So in this abstract I believe they're talking more about injectable drugs like heroin, fentanyl, other kinds of street drugs that could be abused and injected."