ABSTRACT
Prescription drug abuse ranks as the second most common class of illicit drug use in the United States, and one mechanism of opiate abuse involves intravenous injection of enteral narcotics such as oxycodone or hydrocodone. The authors describe a patient who sustained significant soft tissue necrosis after intravenously injecting a solution made from crushed enteral narcotics, with a focus on the operative course that resulted due to a delay in initial definitive treatment. The patient's wounds encompassed 8% total body surface area and covered 247 cm2. A 55-year-old female was admitted to the burn unit (West Penn Burn Center, Western Pennsylvania Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA) after she initially presented with infection and cellulitis to her bilateral upper extremities 3 weeks after intravenously injecting herself with crushed oxycodone/acetaminophen. She underwent numerous sequential operative repairs including initial debridement, placement of dermal replacement templates, and several split-thickness autografts and xenografts. Her total length of stay was 59 days, broken into an initial 47-day stay, and a subsequent 12-day readmission due to graft failure secondary to poor follow-up. As the number of prescription drug abusers rises, it is possible that an increase in attempts to intravenously abuse enteral narcotics may also rise. As such, burn centers should be prepared for the extent of potential limb necrosis and the operative treatment that may ensue.
Subject(s)
Acetaminophen/adverse effects , Analgesics, Non-Narcotic/adverse effects , Narcotics/adverse effects , Oxycodone/adverse effects , Prescription Drug Misuse/adverse effects , Soft Tissue Infections/chemically induced , Cellulitis/chemically induced , Cellulitis/pathology , Debridement/methods , Drug Combinations , Drug Eruptions/etiology , Drug Eruptions/pathology , Drug Eruptions/surgery , Female , Graft Rejection , Humans , Middle Aged , Necrosis/chemically induced , Necrosis/pathology , Necrosis/surgery , Skin Transplantation/methods , Soft Tissue Infections/pathology , Soft Tissue Infections/surgery , Soft Tissue Injuries/chemically induced , Soft Tissue Injuries/pathology , Soft Tissue Injuries/surgery , Substance Abuse, Intravenous/complications , Substance Abuse, Intravenous/pathologyABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Both the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) require core faculty to engage in scholarly work, including publication in peer-reviewed journals. With the ACGME/AOA merger, we sought to evaluate the frequency of publication in high-impact peer-reviewed EM journals from authors affiliated with osteopathic emergency medicine (EM) programs. METHODS: We performed a retrospective literature review using the Journal Citation Report database and identified the top five journals in the category of 'Emergency Medicine' by their 2011 Impact Factor. We examined all publications from each journal for 2011. For each article we recorded article type, authors' names, position of authorship (first, senior or other), the author's degree and affiliated institution. We present the data in raw numbers and percentages. RESULTS: The 2011 EM journals with the highest impact factor were the following: Annals of Emergency Medicine, Resuscitation, Journal of Trauma, Injury, and Academic Emergency Medicine. Of the 9,298 authors published in these journals in 2011; 1,309 (15%) claimed affiliation with U.S.-based EM programs, of which 16 (1%) listed their affiliations with eight different osteopathic EM programs. The 16 authors claimed affiliation with 8 of 46 osteopathic EM programs (17%), while 1,301 authors claimed affiliation with 104 of 148 (70%) U.S.-based allopathic programs. CONCLUSION: Authors from osteopathic EM programs are under-represented in the top EM journals. With the pending ACGME/AOA merger, there is a significant opportunity for improvement in the rate of publication of osteopathic EM programs in top tier EM journals.
