Organ pathologies detected post-mortem in patients receiving opioid agonist treatment for opioid use disorder: a nation-wide 2-year cross-sectional study.

Aims: To document organ pathologies detected post-mortem in patients receiving opioid agonist treatment for opioid use disorder and estimate the extent to which individual characteristics are associated with pulmonary, cardiovascular, hepatic or renal pathologies.

Design: Two-year cross-sectional nation-wide study.

Setting: Norway.

Fatal poisoning in drug addicts in the Nordic countries in 2017.

This study is the seventh report on fatal poisonings among drug addicts in the Nordic countries. In this report, we analyse data from the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Data on gender, number of deaths, places of deaths, age, main intoxicants and substances detected in blood were recorded to obtain national and comparable Nordic data, and to allow comparison with earlier studies conducted in 1984, 1991, 1997, 2002, 2007 and 2012.

Age assessment by Demirjian's development stages of the third molar: a systematic review.

Objectives: Radiographic evaluation of the wisdom teeth (third molar) formation is a widely used age assessment method for adolescents and young adults. This systematic review examines evidence on the agreement between Demirjian's development stages of the third molar and chronological age.

Methods: We searched four databases up until May 2016 for studies reporting Demirjian's stages of third molar and confirmed chronological age of healthy individuals aged 10-25 years.

A systematic review of the agreement between chronological age and skeletal age based on the Greulich and Pyle atlas.

Objectives: This systematic review examines the agreement between assessed skeletal age by the Greulich and Pyle atlas (GP skeletal age) and chronological age.

Methods: We searched electronic databases until January 2017 for studies reporting GP skeletal age and confirmed chronological age in healthy individuals aged 10-25 years. Results are presented as forest plots and meta-analyses (random-effects models).

Fatal poisoning in drug addicts in the Nordic countries in 2012.

This report is a follow-up to a study on fatal poisoning in drug addicts conducted in 2012 by a Nordic working group. Here we analyse data from the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Data on sex, number of deaths, places of death, age, main intoxicants and other drugs detected in the blood were recorded.

Nonnatural deaths among users of illicit drugs: pathological findings and illicit drug abuse stigmata.

The aim of the study was to provide information on illicit drug abuse stigmata and general pathological findings among an adult narcotic drug-using population aged 20 to 59 years whose death was nonnatural. A total of 1603 medicolegal autopsy reports from 2000 to 2009 concerning cases positive for morphine, heroin, amphetamines, ecstasy, cannabis, LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), PCP (phencyclidine), and high levels of GHB (γ-hydroxybutyric acid) in addition to methadone and buprenorphine were investigated. Reported findings of hepatitis, portal lymphadenopathy, recent injection marks, drug user's equipment, and numbers of significant pathological conditions were registered and analyzed according to cases positive for opiates, opioids (OPs), and central nervous system (CNS)-stimulating illicit drugs, respectively.

Unnatural deaths among drug abusers.

Background: Deaths caused by drug abuse, in which the cause of death is intoxication, so-called overdose deaths, are regularly reported and studied. Other deaths related to drug abuse have been less frequently studied. We wished to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of unnatural deaths in persons in whom drugs were detected in blood samples taken at autopsy.

Liver fibrosis progression at autopsy in injecting drug users infected by hepatitis C: a longitudinal long-term cohort study.

Background & Aims: There is a paucity of unbiased data on the natural history of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in injecting drug users (IDUs). The purpose of this study was to assess the risk of developing advanced fibrosis associated with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection among injecting drug users (IDUs) who underwent an autopsy.

Methods: A longitudinal cohort design was applied, in which the stage of liver fibrosis in anti-HCV positive IDUs with or without chronic HCV infection was assessed in liver tissue from autopsies performed up to 35 years after HCV exposure.

The PMMA epidemic in Norway: comparison of fatal and non-fatal intoxications.

During a 6 month period (July 2010-January 2011) we observed 12 fatal intoxications and 22 non-fatal cases related to the drug paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMMA) in Norway (4.8 mill inhabitants). This toxic designer drug, also known as "Death", is occasionally found in street drugs offered as "ecstasy" or "amphetamine".

[On-site testing for drug abuse in urine].

Background: There is an increasing interest in on-site testing for drugs of abuse.

Methods: Based upon our own experience and published literature, we have reviewed advantages and disadvantages of such tests. On-site testing is also evaluated in relation to the recommendations for urinary testing of drugs of abuse from the Norwegian Health Authorities.