Harm reduction journal
-
Harm reduction journal · Jan 2011
Abuse risks and routes of administration of different prescription opioid compounds and formulations.
Evaluation of tamper resistant formulations (TRFs) and classwide Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) for prescription opioid analgesics will require baseline descriptions of abuse patterns of existing opioid analgesics, including the relative risk of abuse of existing prescription opioids and characteristic patterns of abuse by alternate routes of administration (ROAs). This article presents, for one population at high risk for abuse of prescription opioids, the unadjusted relative risk of abuse of hydrocodone, immediate release (IR) and extended release (ER) oxycodone, methadone, IR and ER morphine, hydromorphone, IR and ER fentanyl, IR and ER oxymorphone. How relative risks change when adjusted for prescription volume of the products was examined along with patterns of abuse via ROAs for the products. ⋯ Unadjusted risks observed here were consistent with rankings of prescription opioid abuse obtained by others using different populations/methods. Adjusted risk estimates suggest that some, less widely prescribed analgesics are more often abused than prescription volume would predict. The compounds/formulations investigated evidenced unique ROA patterns. Baseline abuse patterns will be important for future evaluations of TRFs and REMS.