Patient Care brings primary care clinicians a lot of medical news every day—it’s easy to miss an important study. The Daily Dose provides a concise summary of one of the website's leading stories you may not have seen.
On March 28, 2025, we reported on a study published inThe American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse that was designed to determine the prevalence of nonfatal pediatric fentanyl exposures and associated characteristics and delineate how such characteristics are associated with major (life-threatening) outcomes.
The study
The peer-reviewed study analyzed 3009 nonfatal fentanyl exposures in individuals aged 0-19 years reported to poison centers across 49 US states between January 2015 and December 2023.
The findings
Researchers found exposures increased from 69 cases in 2015 to 893 in 2023, an overall increase of 1,194% (P <.001). During the 8 years, the number of overdoses among the youngest pediatric age group (aged 0 to 12 years) increased approximately 10-fold, from 37 to 379 (924%; P < .001) and among adolescents (aged 13 to 19 years) by more than that, from 32 to 514 (1,506%; P < .001).
Among adolescents, the researchers found that approximately two-thirds, 65.7%, intentionally used fentanyl for nonmedical purposes, while the majority (81.7%) of exposures in children under age 12 were unintentional.
Authors' comments
"Pediatric exposures to fentanyl are increasing and over one-third of cases are unintentional and/or had documented life-threatening effects. Prevention and harm reduction efforts need to include efforts for youth, particularly as counterfeit pills containing fentanyl flood the illicit market."
