Mortality in Heroin Addiction: Impact of Methadone Treatment

The mortality within a cohort of 115 street heroin addicts in Sweden was studied for 5-8 years using the Kaplan-Meier survival estimate technique. 166 subjects either in methadone treatment, voluntarily discharged from treatment, or involuntarily discharged were also studied. Even though overall mortality was much higher among the 115 addicts not in treatment, suicide occurred most often among subjects in methadone treatment. Only 1 death among the untreated subjects was verified as a suicide.