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36 SPOTLIGHT ON OPIOID EPIDEMIC US Surgeon General Issues Call to Action in Fight Against Opioid, Alcohol Abuse By Tamara Rosin T he U.S. Surgeon General issued a call to action in November to end the epidemic of drug and alcohol addiction, which he said is both under-appreciated and under-treated in the U.S., according to Reuters. Vivek Murthy, MD, issued the first-ever Surgeon General's re- port on addiction Nov. 17, with the goal that the report will stim- ulate heightened efforts to combat the issue, similar to how a re- port 50 years ago catalyzed a movement to reduce smoking. Deaths caused by prescription painkillers and heroin over- doses in the U.S. in 2014 rose 6.5 percent to a new record of 47,055, according to the CDC. "The most important thing is, we have to change attitudes to- wards addiction and get people into treatment," Dr. Murthy said in an interview, according to the report. "Addiction is a dis- ease of the brain," he added, "not a character flaw." The report calls for a holistic approach to battling the addiction epidemic, including a coordinated effort among policymakers, regulators, scientists, families, schools and local communities. Dr. Murthy emphasized the need to increase access to existing treatment programs, which he said have shown to reduce the risk of relapse, while simultaneously expanding new and more effective treatment programs. n Overdoses, Falls Fuel Rise of Preventable Deaths by Unintentional Injury, CDC Says By Heather Punke W hile preventable deaths related to heart disease, can- cer and stroke have declined in recent years, prevent- able deaths caused by unintentional injuries have been on the rise, according to the CDC. e CDC released a report in November documenting potential- ly preventable deaths among the five leading causes of death in the U.S.: heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, stroke and unintentional injuries. Together, these five causes of death represented 63 percent of all deaths in the U.S. in 2014. However, unlike heart disease, cancer and stroke, the uninten- tional injuries category saw its number of potentially preventable deaths increase from 2010 to 2014, CDC analysis found. To determine the number of potentially preventable deaths in each category, CDC analysts used National Vital Statistics mor- tality data from 2014. ey compared the number of expected deaths (based on cause-specific average death rate of the three states with the lowest average death rate by group) with the num- ber of observed deaths. When comparing potentially preventable death rates in 2010 to those in 2014, the CDC found potentially preventable deaths changed as follows: • Cancer — decreased 25 percent (from 84,443 to 63,209) • Stroke — decreased 11 percent (from 16,973 to 15,175) • Heart disease — decreased 4 percent (from 91,757 to 87,950) • Chronic lower respiratory disease — increased 1 percent (from 28,831 to 29,232) • Unintentional injury — increased 23 percent (from 36,836 to 45,331) Overall, the CDC believes 43 percent of the unintentional injury deaths in 2014 were potentially preventable. e increase in potentially preventable deaths by unintention- al injury "is mostly attributed to the increase in drug poisoning (overdose from prescription and illicit drugs) and falls," accord- ing to the report. States can help reduce the number of overdose deaths by de- veloping or enhancing their prescription drug monitoring pro- grams, implementing clinical prescribing guidelines and increas- ing access to naloxone, the anti-opioid overdose drug, the CDC report reads. To reduce falls, the CDC provides tools for clinicians to use in assessing fall risk and educating patients. n Opioids May Not Help Chronic Wound Patients Heal, Study Shows By Anuja Vaidya P atients suffering from chronic wounds heal faster when they do not receive opioids as compared to when they do, according to a study published in Wound Repair and Regeneration. Researchers studied 450 subjects enrolled in the WE-HEAL biore- pository, a wound etiology and healing study, which George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, D.C., is conducting. The researchers collected data using baseline characteristics, such as pain score, longitudinal opioid exposure and total wound surface area. The researchers found that opioid exposure was associated with a lower likelihood of healing in chronic wound patients. Additionally, opioid dose was significantly associated with total wound surface area. However, "more work needs to be done to understand this finding and the possible mechanisms driving it. We look for- ward to continuing this research, which may lead to faster heal- ing and improved patient outcomes," said GW researcher Vic- toria Shanmugam, MD. n