COPD and asthma in patients with opioid dependency: a cross-sectional study in primary care.

COPD and asthma in patients with opioid dependency: a cross-sectional study in primary care.
NPJ Prim Care Respir Med. 2020 Jan 14;30(1):4
Authors: Mehta S, Parmar N, Kelleher M, Jolley CJ, White P, Durbaba S, Ashworth M
Abstract
Patients treated for drug addiction have high asthma and COPD prevalence rates. The relative contributions of cigarette smoking, smoking intensity and possible smoking of other substances has not been described. We aimed to describe the prevalence and determinants of asthma and COPD in patients prescribed methadone as opioid substitution therapy (OST). In a cross-sectional study of an anonymised patient-level primary care dataset of UK inner-city general practices (n = 46), 321,395 patients aged ≥18 years were identified. A total of 676 (0.21%) had a record of a methadone ever issued in primary care. The association between respiratory disease and methadone prescribing was examined using logistic regression. Models were adjusted for potential effects of clustering by practice. A total of 97.3% of patients prescribed methadone were cigarette smokers, either current (81.2%) or ex-smokers (16.1%). The prevalences of asthma and COPD were higher in methadone patients (14.2% and 12.4%, respectively) compared to non-methadone patients (4.4% and 1.1%, respectively). Methadone was an independent determinant of asthma, adjusting for smoking status (OR 3.21; 95% CI: 2.52, 4.10) or for smoking intensity (3.08; 2.2...

Source: Respiratory Care - January 13, 2020 Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Mehta S, Parmar N, Kelleher M, Jolley CJ, White P, Durbaba S, Ashworth M Tags: NPJ Prim Care Respir Med Source Type: research