WARREN — Drug overdose deaths in Trumbull County may be the highest in a five-year period, if the 21 pending death investigations are all found to have been caused by drug use.

As of May 11, the county has confirmed 30 overdose cases.

If that number remains the same after pending toxicology screenings are completed, it would result in 2022 having the second-highest number of overdose death cases since 2017, according to statistics provided by Dr. Lawrence D’Amico, Trumbull County coroner. There were seven overdose deaths during the same period in 2017.

If all the 21 pending death cases currently being investigated are determined to have been caused by drug overdoses, however, 2022 will have 51 overdose deaths — surpassing the 49 overdose deaths that occurred in 2021.

The vast majority of the confirmed overdose drug deaths so far in 2022 involved victims having taken synthetic fentanyl, or fentanyl in combination of other drugs.

Nearly a third — nine — of the current confirmed accidental drug overdose death cases involved victims with only fentanyl in their systems, according to a Trumbull County Coroner’s Office report. In the remaining 15 drug overdose cases in which victims had fentanyl in their systems, other drugs also were present.

Other drugs included various combinations of cocaine, benzoylegonine, methamphetamine, amphetamine and norfentanyl.

In five overdose deaths, the victims did not have fentanyl in their systems.

Of the confirmed accidental overdose deaths, 18 were male and 12 female. Twenty-five of the 30 cases with confirmed overdose deaths were white; four were black; and one was identified as other.