Age and sex related differences in clinical manifestations and severity of acute cocaine toxicity presentations to European emergency departments

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to investigate if clinical manifestations and severity associated with acute cocaine toxicity differ according to patient age and sex, analyzing presentations in the Euro-DEN Plus dataset from 2013 to 2023 in which cocaine was the only drug involved (except for ethanol). We consider the age as a continuous variable using non-linear restricted cubic spline (RCS) models, and biological sex as a binary variable, and we also analyze another 14 clinical manifestations recorded during emergency department (ED) care. As markers of severity, we recorded hospitalization, critical care (ICU) admission and in-hospital death. Associations were reported as odds ratio (OR) adjusted by sex/age (as needed. Our results shows that 9365 of 83,452 Euro-DEN Plus presentations (11.2 %) were due to cocaine use alone. The most frequent clinical manifestations were anxiety (31 %), chest pain (28 %), and agitation/aggressiveness (26 %). Arrhythmias, hypertension, and hallucinations were more frequent in older patients; agitation/aggressiveness, psychosis and hyperthermia in middle age, and seizures predominated in younger patients. Regarding differences accorded to sex, women more frequently presented to the ED with vomiting, headache, anxiety, or hypotension, and men with hyperthermia, chest pain, hypertension, or arrhythmias. 3 % of all cases needed ICU admission, 22 % hospitalization in a conventional ward and 0.4 % of cases die. All these severity markers increased with age. Hospitalization was more frequent in men. These data allow us to conclude that the prevalence of some clinical features typically associated with acute cocaine toxicity and toxicity severity differed according to age and sex.

Keywords: Acute toxicity; Age; Cocaine; Emergency department; Sex.