A study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, examined the clinical effects of prescription opioid use on risk of invasive pneumococcal disease.
Researchers used the Tennessee Medicaid database linked to Medicare and Active Bacterial Core surveillance system databases. They studied 1,233 case patients with invasive pneumococcal disease, aged 5 years and older, matched to 24,399 control participants.
They defined invasive pneumococcal disease by the isolation of Streptococcus pneumoniae from a normally sterile site.
Researchers found case patients had greater odds of being current opioid users as compared to control participants. Association of opioid use and invasive pneumococcal disease was the strongest for opioids that:
• Were long acting
• Of high potency
• Were used at high dosages
"[Opioid use] represents a novel risk factor for [invasive pneumococcal] diseases," study authors concluded.