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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Aug 31.
Published in final edited form as: Am J Med. 2008 Jan;121(1):66–71. doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2007.10.009

Table 2.

Case–Case Comparison: Patients with Sudden Cardiac Death With and without Therapeutic Levels of Methadone on Toxicology Screen

Cases with Methadone Cases without Methadone P value*
Cardiac disease or abnormalities 5 (23%) 64 (60%) .002
 CAD 5 47
 HCM/severe LVH 0 12
 Cardiac or coronary anomaly 0 2
 Myocarditis 0 2
 Dilated cardiomyopathy 0 1
No cardiac abnormalities 17 (77%) 42 (40%)
 Normal heart 13 28
 Unexplained isolated fibrosis 1 5
 Mild-moderate LVH 3 8
 Mitral valve prolapse 0 1
Any other medication on toxicology screen 10 (45%) 31 (29%) .14
 Psychotropic medications† 1 2
 Antidepressants 6 7
 Antiseizure 0 2
 Benzodiazepines 1 2
 Opioid analgesics (non-methadone) 1 11
 Other pain medications or muscle relaxants 1 4
 Antihistamines 4 7
 Ephedrine 0 3

LVH = left ventricular hypertrophy; CAD = significant coronary artery disease; HCM = hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

*

Pearson chi-square test, any cardiac disease or abnormality versus none, and any other medication versus none.

†

Individual medications add to more than the “any other medication” sum because some patients took more than 1 other medication (2 cases with and 7 cases without methadone had 2 other medications in blood; 1 case with methadone had 3 other medications in blood).