For a person who injects heroin (diacetylmorphine) and develops toxicity requiring intervention, what is the time interval to need for intervention such as ventilatory support (bag-valve mask) or naloxone?
In the Medically Supervised Injecting Room in Melbourne, Australia with 60,693 supervised visits in one year, only 1218 heroin overdoses occurred. The median time to from readiness to prepare and inject to clinical intervention was 17 min (IQR 11 to 28 min).
Nathan C. Stam, Shelley Cogger, Jennifer L. Schumann, Anthony Weeks, Amanda Roxburgh, Paul M. Dietze & Nicolas Clark (2022) The onset and severity of acute opioid toxicity in heroin overdose cases: a retrospective cohort study at a supervised injecting facility in Melbourne, Australia, Clinical Toxicology, DOI: 10.1080/15563650.2022.2126371
Contributed by: Michael Mullins