Older adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who start using opioids have a more than two-fold higher risk of dying from a respiratory-related complication compared to non-opioid users, St. Michael’s Hospital researchers have found.
When researchers looked specifically at more potent opioids, they found the risk for respiratory-related death was five times higher for new opioid users compared to non-opioid users.
Excerpted from an article on News-Medical.Net. To read the full article, click here.