New research presented at this year's ESC Congress 2024 in London, UK (30 Aug–2 Sept) shows that among patients admitted to the intensive cardiac care unit (ICCU), those with a recent history of recreational drug use are three times more likely than those with no history to experience a repeat serious cardiovascular event within one year. "Among patients admitted to the intensive cardiac care unit (ICCU), systematic screening for recreational drugs evidenced a significant prevalence—11%—of recent use," said study author Dr. Raphael Mirailles, Hospital Lariboisiere, Paris, France.
"Recreational drug use was associated with triple the risk of a repeat serious cardiovascular event within one year." Previous work by the same group showed that this recent history of recreational drug use was associated with a higher rate of in-hospital outcomes. However, long-term cardiovascular consequences of recreational drug use remain uncertain.
In this study the authors aimed to evaluate the prognostic impact of recreational drug use at 1-year follow-up to predict serious cardiovascular events (including death) in consecutive patients admitted to ICCUs for acute cardiovascular events from the Addiction in Intensive Cardiac Care Units (ADDICT-ICCU) study. All consecutive patients admitted to ICCUs over two weeks in April 2021 at 39 centers across France were included. Screening for recreational drug use was performed by systematic urinary testing.
All patients provided written informed .