The Clinical journal of pain
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Opioid medications are an important tool in the management of pain and have been used in clinical practice for centuries. However, due to the highly addictive nature of this class of medications coupled with the life-threatening side effect of respiratory depression, opioid misuse has become a significant public health crisis worldwide. Children and adolescents are at risk for opioid misuse, and early detection is imperative to facilitate treatment and improve outcomes. This review will address the current state of opioid misuse and treatment in children and adolescents in the United States.
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Review Comparative Study
From Tramadol to Methadone: Opioids in the Treatment of Pain and Dyspnea in Pediatric Palliative Care.
More than 15,000 children die annually in the United States due to an underlying life-limiting disease and the majority of those children experience distressing symptoms, which are not adequately relieved, such as pain and dyspnea. Multimodal analgesia, that is multiple agents, interventions, rehabilitation, psychological modalities, and integrative (nonpharmacologic) therapies, act synergistically for more effective pediatric pain and symptom control with fewer side effects than a single analgesic or modality. However, opioids, such as morphine, fentanyl, hydromorphone, oxycodone, and methadone (in the United Kingdom: diamorphine) remain the mainstay medication to effectively treat pain and dyspnea in children with serious illness. ⋯ Tramadol appears to play a key role in treating episodes of inconsolability in children with progressive neurologic, metabolic, or chromosomally based condition with impairment of the central nervous system. However, the recent 2017 United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warning against pediatric use of tramadol does not seem to be based on clinical evidence, and therefore puts children at risk for unrelieved pain or increased respiratory depression.
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Understanding the molecular biology of opioid analgesia is essential for its proper implementation and mechanistic approach to its modulation in order to maximize analgesia and minimize undesired effects. By appreciating the molecular mechanisms intrinsic to opioid analgesia, one can manipulate a molecular target to augment or diminish a specific effect using adjuvant drugs, select an appropriate opioid for opioid rotation or define a molecular target for new opioid drug development. In this review, we present the cellular and molecular mechanisms of opioid analgesia and that of the associated phenomena of tolerance, dependence, and hyperalgesia. The specific mechanisms highlighted are those that presently can be clinically addressed.
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Pediatric neuropathic pain is caused by a spectrum of disorders that are generally challenging to treat. Many of the underlying altered neurological processes are being elucidated through mechanistic studies. ⋯ Our clinical experience and typical risk versus benefit considerations suggest a limited, if any, role for using opioids to treat pediatric neuropathic pain. In this literature review, we review the available adult and pediatric data and provide general guidance on this subject matter.
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The objective of this study was to estimate the national burden of school absenteeism associated with pain among 6 to 17-year-old children in the United States. ⋯ Associations between pain and school absenteeism highlight the need for interventions aimed at improving school attendance among children with pain.