Fatalities associated with gabapentinoids in England (2004-2020).

The gabapentinoids were reclassified as Schedule II medications and Class C drugs in the UK in 2019 due to their potential misuse. In this study we examined deaths following gabapentinoid use in England reported to the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths. A total of 3051 deaths were reported (gabapentin: 913 cases; pregabalin: 2322 cases [both detected in 184 cases]). Prescribed and illicitly obtained gabapentinoids accounted for similar proportions of deaths (gabapentin illicit 38.0%, prescribed 37.1%; pregabalin illicit 41.0%, prescribed 34.6%). Opioids were co-detected in most cases (92.0%), and co-prescribed in a quarter (25.3%). Postmortem blood gabapentinoid concentrations were commonly (sub)therapeutic (65.0% of gabapentin cases; 50.8% of pregabalin cases). In only two cases was gabapentinoid toxicity alone attributed in causing death. Gabapentinoids alone rarely cause death. Clinically relevant doses can, however, prove fatal, possibly by reducing tolerance to opioids. Doctors and patients should be aware of this interaction. Gabapentinoid-opioid co-prescribing needs urgent revision.

Rapid Fabrication of High-Entropy Ceramic Nanomaterials for Catalytic Reactions.

Although high-entropy alloys have been intensively studied in the past decade, there are still many requirements for manufacturing processes and application directions to be proposed and developed, but most techniques are focused on high-entropy bulk materials and surface coatings. We fabricated high-entropy ceramic (HEC) nanomaterials using simple pulsed laser irradiation scanning on mixed salt solutions (PLMS method) under low-vacuum conditions. This method, allowing simple operation, rapid manufacturing, and low cost, is capable of using various metal salts as precursors and is also suitable for both flat and complicated 3D substrates. In this work, we engineered this PLMS method to fabricate high-entropy ceramic oxides containing four to seven elements. To address the catalytic performance of these HEC nanomaterials, we focused on CoCrFeNiAl high-entropy oxides applied to the oxygen-evolution reaction (OER), which is considered a sluggish process in water. We performed systematic material characterization to solve the complicated structure of the CoCrFeNiAl HEC as a spinel structure, AB2O4 (A, B = Co, Cr, Fe, Ni, or Al). Atoms in A and B sites in the spinel structure can be replaced with other elements; either divalent or trivalent metals can occupy the spinel lattice using this PLMS process. We applied this PLMS method to manufacture electrocatalytic CoCrFeNiAl HEC electrodes for the OER reaction, which displayed state-of-the-art activity and stability.