Phila.gov
Doctors who spoke at the symposium stressed the importance of collaboration between different medical disciplines: The patients they see require care that goes beyond simply treating a serious wound.
Read the full article at Inquirer.com
Patients addicted to opioids are arriving at emergency rooms with deep wounds that expose their bones. Some have lost multiple limbs. And many ultimately are leaving hospitals against medical advice, with severe, untreated skin lesions, insisting they can’t bear the withdrawal from tranq — the drug that caused their wounds in the first place.
Those were among the stories shared by doctors from Philadelphia’s major health systems as they compared notes for the first time on the medical consequences of tranq — the street term for xylazine, an animal tranquilizer that has exploded across the city’s illicit opioid supply.
At a weekend symposium hosted at Thomas Jefferson University by Rothman Orthopedics and the Foundation for Opioid Research and Education, physicians outlined the patient cases they’d seen and the limited research on how xylazine affects the body.
“This has really changed the dynamic of the opioid crisis,” said Asif Ilyas, an orthopedic surgeon at Rothman who helped organize the event. “And Philadelphia is the front line.”
