Is there a relationship between opioid use and transient global amnesia?

Opioid-associated amnestic syndrome (OAS) and transient global amnesia (TGA) are conditions with clinical overlap. We therefore sought to determine whether opioid use might be associated with TGA.

Data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Syndromic Surveillance program were queried to ascertain the frequency of opioid use among emergency department (ED) encounters for TGA compared to that for all other ED visits between January 2019 and June 2023.

A total of 13,188,630 ED visits were identified during the study period. Of 1417 visits for TGA, one visit met the exposure definition for opioid use. There were 13,187,213 visits for other indications, 57,638 of which were considered opioid-exposed. The odds ratio for the relationship between opioid use and TGA was 0.16 (95% confidence interval 0.02, 1.14).

Despite the clinical overlap between OAS and TGA, surveillance data from ED visits in Massachusetts do not suggest that opioid use is a risk factor for TGA, indicating that OAS and TGA are distinct entities.