Heroin Toxicity Differential Diagnoses

Updated: Feb 01, 2023
  • Author: Rania Habal, MD; Chief Editor: Jeter (Jay) Pritchard Taylor, III, MD  more...
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DDx

Diagnostic Considerations

Fentanyl, which is 20 to 40 times more potent than heroin, may be mixed with heroin but is increasingly sold by itself. In recent years, illicitly produced nonpharmaceutical fentanyl and fentanyl analogs (eg, acetyl fentanyl), which can be can be snorted, injected, or swallowed, have emerged in the illicit drug market, and in some areas have displaced heroin. Because of fentanyl's faster onset of action and greater potency, the drug is responsible for growing numbers of fatal overdoses. [15]

Differential Diagnoses