BackgroundRecent trends in the legalization of marijuana in many states are increasing the popularity of recreational marijuana use. Since current data on hospitalizations in marijuana users is sparse, we evaluated the primary reasons for admissions, procedures and associated healthcare burden in hospitalized recreational marijuana users.MethodsThe National Inpatient Sample (NIS) for the years 2010–2014 was queried for the hospitalizations with a history of recreational marijuana usage using applicable ICD-9 CM codes. Descriptive statistics were used to report frequency (N) and percentage (%). Discharge weights were applied to achieve national estimates. The predictors of in-hospital mortality in recreational marijuana users were assessed using a two-way hierarchical multivariate regression after adjusting for the confounders.Results We analyzed 465,959 (weighted n=2,317,343) hospitalizations with a history of recreational marijuana use. Among psychiatric disorders, most prominent primary discharge diagnoses were mood disorders (20.6%), schizophrenia/other psychotic disorders (10.6%), and substance/alcohol-related disorders (10.4%). Suicide and intentional self-inflicted injury (3.6%) was the leading cause of emergency admission. The most common non-psychiatric primary discharge diagnoses were diabetes mellitus with chronic complications (2.2%), acute myocardial infarction (AMI) (1.2%), nonspecific chest pain (1.1%), congestive cardiac failure (CHF) (1%), arrhythmia (0.8%), and hypertension (0.8%). Acute cerebrovascular diseases were noted in 1.1% and epilepsy in 1.8% of patients. Alcohol/drug rehabilitation and detoxification (6.9%) and psychiatric evaluation/therapy (3.9%) were the most evident psychiatric procedures whereas most frequent non-psychiatric procedures were diagnostic coronary arteriography (1%), percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (0.7%), and echocardiogram (0.7%). Top independent predictors of in-hospital mortality were coagulopathy (OR 5.94), AMI (OR 4.59), pulmonary circulation disorder (OR 2.95), CHF (OR 2.02), renal failure (OR 1.91), coronary atherosclerosis (OR 1.34) and peripheral vascular disorder (OR 1.31). Major cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events also showed increasing trends among users.ConclusionWe established the most frequent psychiatric and non-psychiatric causes of admissions and procedures in recreational marijuana users, which may pose a significant healthcare burden and increase the odds of in-hospital mortality.

Cardiac myxoma is the most common primary cardiac tumour. 1 Cardiac myxomas mostly arise from the mitral valve (75%) and those originating from the aortic valve accounts for ~3% of the cardiac myxomas. [2][3][4] Most of the cardiac tumours are a result of metastasis and they are 30 times more frequent than primary tumours-like aortic valve myxoma. 5 Up to 20% of the myxomas are asymptomatic and 90% of them are located in the left atrium. 6 10% of the cases are associated with Carney syndrome-an autosomal dominant disorder associated with pigmentation of the skin, the tendency to be affected by mucocutaneous myxomas, acromegaly, and the Cushing syndrome. 6,7 To have a better understanding of clinical course and outcomes associated with this infrequent condition, we have performed a systematic review of published cases.

This study concluded up to a 24% increased likelihood of pancreatic cancer among the HepB patients. Blacks showed greater odds of pancreatic cancer and related mortality.

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