International symposium on emergency medicine

Material and Methods
In the year 2009 died 19 patients whose cause of death was drug or they had been previously treated
for drug addiction. 17 of them were men. The most common cause of death was opiate overdose related
to heroin. The data for drug related deaths are been collected from Institute for Forensic Medicine and
Crime, Medical faculty in Skopje, and the other departments for forensic medicine in General hospitals
in the towns Bitola, Tetovo and Gostivar in Republic of Macedonia. The all cases with drug related deaths
collected from the autopsy and toxicology analysis, but many cases without autopsy because of religion,
financial and other reasons, so what there is no evidence for certain number for drug related deaths.
Results
In the year 2009 died 19 patients whose cause of death was drug. The majority of drug related death,
78,9%, was opiate overdose, and in 4 of this patients opiates and Psychoactive Drugs, or in 2 cases there
is opiate and amphetamines, and 2 cases opiates and benzodiazepines. Drug related death with
methadone in 2 (10,5%) cases, again mixed drugs, or in 1 patients was detected opiates, in other
amphetamine. Cause for the drug related death in 1 patient was suicide, and also detected cocaine. I of
all patients died with myocarditis and hepatitis C, and opiates addiction.
URGENTNA MEDICINA - IZBRANA POGLAVJA 2010
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Year
Male
Female
Total
2004
4
2
6
2005
9
1
10
2006
12
0
12
2007
10
0
10
2008
7
1
8
2009
19
0
19
Table 5. 
The data from Institute for Forensic Medicine and Crime for drug related deaths in the period from 2004- 2009
year on the Table5. 
URGENTNA MEDICINA - IZBRANA POGLAVJA 2010