• Ting-Ting Wu, Zhi-Gang Wang, Wu-Ling Ou, Jun Wang, Guo-Qing Yao, Bo Yang, Zhi-Guo Rao, Jian-Fei Gao, and Bi-Cheng Zhang.
• Department of Oncology, Wuhan General Hospital of Guangzhou Command, People's Liberation Army, Wuhan, China E-mail : bichengzhang@hotmail.com.
• Asian Pac J Cancer P. 2014 Jan 1; 15 (24): 10855-60.

BackgroundThe study aimed to investigate the analgesic effect of a combination of intravenous flurbiprofen axetil and opioids, and evaluate the relationship between refractory pain relief and plasma β-endorphin levels in cancer patients.Materials And MethodsA total of 120 cancer patients was randomly divided into two groups, 60 patients took orally morphine sulfate sustained-release tablets in group A, and another 60 patients receiving the combination treatment of intravenous flurbiprofen axetil and opioid drugs in group B. After 7 days, pain relief, quality of life improvement and side effects were evaluated. Furthermore, plasma β-endorphin levels were measured by radioimmunoassay.ResultsWith the combination treatment of intravenous intravenous flurbiprofen axetil and opioids, the total effective rate of pain relief rose to 91.4%, as compared to 82.1% when morphine sulfate sustained-release tablet was used alone. Compared with that of group A, the analgesic effect increased in group B (p=0.031). Moreover, satisfactory pain relief was associated with a significant increase in plasma β-endorphin levels. After the treatment, plasma β-endorphin level in group B was 62.4±13.5 pg/ml, which was higher than that in group A (45.8±11.2 pg/ml) (p<0.05).ConclusionsOur results suggest the combination of intravenous flurbiprofen axetil and opioids can enhance the analgesic effect of opioid drugs by increasing plasma β-endorphin levels, which would offer a selected and reliable strategy for refractory cancer pain treatment.

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