Episode 297: FIXED! 296. Is There a Drug That Will Keep Alcoholics Out of the Hospital?

Bottom line

Do I think if you stop drinking alcohol in the next thirty days you are less likely to come to the hospital for a heart attack? A stroke? Pneumonia? copd exacerbations or CHF exacerbations?? The answer is no!! not in thirty days.. sure if you drag that out for months or years then yes you are at greater risk but for only 30 days of follow up realistically should be no difference in coming back to the hospital for things that are not alcohol related.

However there was still a significant improvement or decrease in alcohol related return to the hospital.

-- This is what most supporters will look at and say ‘see we should give this medication to everyone’

This get tricky because they lump together alcojol related ED visit and alcohol related readmission in their definition of alcohol related return to the hospital---- well hello!!!! You cant get readmitted if you don’t go to the ED so the real ‘return to the hospital’ is just alcohol return to the ED and by including alcohol relatated readmission with alcohol related ED visit you are just trying to artificially inflate your finding.

I know that they were just trying to artificially manipulate their finidings because as they say “””Alcohol-related ED visits did not reach statistical significance in relative terms (IRR, 0.61 [95% CI, “””

If your patient wants fda approved medications for alcohol use disorder then give it to them!! We shouldn’t without these medications but if you are giving it to them thinking it is some magical pill with a nnt of 4 to prevent death and the patient returning to the hospital then you will be sad!

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38551564/