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Many who work in urban EDs and have a patient population that has a high rate of methadone use have probably wondered - why don't I see many STEMIs in the ED?
One study has actually attempted to answer the question - is methadone cardioprotective? Comparing 98 decedents with known long-term methadone exposure and compared autopsy coronary artery findings to match controls without, there was significant decrease in incidence of severe CAD:
5/98 Methadone Patients post-mortem had severe CAD vs 16/97 match controls
Better than a baby ASA, who knew?
[I thank Dr. Hoffman for citing this article to me]
References
Coronary artery disease and opioid use.
Marmor M, Penn A, Widmer K, Levin RI, Maslansky R.
Am J Cardiol. 2004 May 15;93(10):1295-7.