von Oelreich E, Eriksson M, Brattström O, et al. - Researchers examined injured patients and controls from Sweden matched for age, gender and municipality in order to determine if there is an association of the traumatic injury with chronic opioid use and accompanying heightened long-term mortality. Opioid consumption was assessed before and after trauma after linkage to Swedish health registers. They analyzed some 13,309 injured patients and 70,621 controls. The analysis revealed an independent association of exposure to trauma with chronic opioid use; this use was correlated with age, low level of education, somatic co-morbidity, psychiatric co-morbidity, pretrauma opioid use, and severe injury. An excess risk of death was observed in these patients in the 6–18 months after the trauma.