Modes of death and types of cardiac diseases in opiate addicts: analysis of 168 necropsy cases

Abstract

One hundred sixty-eight opiate addicts, whose hearts were submitted for necropsy study, were examined with prime focus on modes of death and types of cardiac abnormalities. Twenty various modes of death were identified: active infective endocarditis or its consequences in 67 (40%), drug overdose in 39 (24%), coronary artery disease in 14 (8%), pulmonary granulomatosis in 7 (4%) and 15 various diseases (7 cardiac and 8 noncardiac) in the remaining 41 (24%) patients. Of the 168 hearts examined, only 7 (4%) were normal. Although infective endocarditis (active, healed or both) was most common (80 [48%] patients), there was a broad range of other cardiac abnormalities present: cardiomegaly in 114 (68%) (including 22 patients without another cardiac abnormality), coronary artery disease in 35 (21%), acquired valvular heart disease in 16 (10%), myocardial heart disease in 14 (8%) and a congenital cardiac anomaly in 19 (11%). Of the 35 hearts with various coronary artery diseases, 28 had significant (greater than 75%) narrowing of the cross-sectional area of 1 or more of the 4 major (left main, left anterior descending, left circumflex and right) epicardial coronary arteries by atherosclerotic plaque. Of 112 coronary arteries in these 28 hearts, 52 (46%) were significantly narrowed (a mean of 1.9 of the 4 major coronary arteries/patient). In 27 of these 28 cases, each 5-mm segment of the 4 major coronary arteries was examined histologically. Of the 1,435 five-mm segments examined, 189 (13%) were narrowed 76 to 100% in cross-sectional area by plaque; 347 (24%), 51 to 75%; 336 (23%), 26 to 50%; and 563 segments (39%) were narrowed 0 to 25% in cross-sectional area by plaque. The percents of 5-mm segments narrowed 76 to 100% in cross-sectional area were greater in those patients with (128 of 793 [16%]) than without (61 of 642 [9%]) clinical evidence of myocardial ischemia (p = 0.001). In this study a very high frequency of cardiac abnormalities (161 [96%]) was found at necropsy and most deaths (97 [58%]) were related to cardiac disease. Although death was most often due to diseases whose association to opiate addiction is well recognized (such as infective endocarditis, drug overdose and pulmonary granulomatosis from the venous injection of talc), several other modes of death were present. Most prominent among these was coronary artery disease (14 patients [8%]).