Pain physician
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Prescription drug monitoring programs issue reports about a patient's controlled substance prescription history upon request to physicians, law enforcement officials, and pharmacists. The dual purposes of these programs are to reduce the abuse and diversion of controlled substances while not preventing access to these medications for legitimate medical need. ⋯ These results suggest that more attention to the consumer/patient perspective is warranted in maintaining a balanced approach to decreasing drug abuse and diversion while not limiting access to controlled substances in cases of legitimate medical need.
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There is a paucity of literature on the use of epidural injections for the treatment of chronic mid and upper back pain due to disc herniation and radiculitis, axial or discogenic pain, spinal stenosis, post surgery syndrome, and post thoracotomy pain syndrome. ⋯ The evidence based on this systematic review for thoracic epidural injection in treating chronic thoracic pain is considered fair and limited for post thoracotomy pain.
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Chronic persistent neck pain with or without upper extremity pain is common in the general adult population with prevalence of 48% for women and 38% for men, with persistent complaints in 22% of women and 16% of men. Multiple modalities of treatments are exploding in managing chronic neck pain along with increasing prevalence. However, there is a paucity of evidence for all modalities of treatments in managing chronic neck pain. Cervical epidural injections for managing chronic neck pain are one of the commonly performed interventions in the United States. However, the literature supporting cervical epidural steroids in managing chronic pain problems has been scant. ⋯ The evidence is good for radiculitis secondary to disc herniation with local anesthetics and steroids, fair with local anesthetic only; whereas, it is fair for local anesthetics with or without steroids, for axial or discogenic pain, pain of central spinal stenosis, and pain of post surgery syndrome.
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Opioid misuse and abuse occurring in association with the treatment of chronic non-cancer pain are not new phenomena, but their increasing prevalence in recent years is unprecedented. Advancements in pharmaceutical technologies have provided opioid-related drugs, which lack the pure mu agonist activity characteristic of the typical opioid congeners. This absent or altered mu receptor activity imparts an opioid receptor antagonistic or partial agonistic pharmacologic action, which serves to modulate the development of opioid-induced tolerance and physical dependence and facilitate detoxification and withdrawal from opioids. Opioid antagonists and partial agonists are being used in abuse deterrent strategy regimens to prevent opioid tolerance and the development of dependence, as well as in the management of opioid detoxification and treatment of withdrawal. The specific opioid antagonists and partial agonists used in these various therapeutic modalities will be the focus of this review. ⋯ Opioid dependency, whether it results from the misuse or abuse of prescription or street drugs, continues to be a significant public health issue. Passage of DATA 2000 and US Food and Drug Administration approval of buprenorphine and buprenorphine/ naloxone has revolutionized opioid dependence therapy. The traditional addiction medicine therapy regimen of methadone maintenance, with its inherent legal limitations and restrictions, has been challenged by an office-based dependence practice with buprenorphine serving as a prominent therapeutic tool.
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Spinal cord or nerve root compression from an epidural metastasis occurs in 5-10% of patients with cancer and in up to 40% of patients with preexisting nonspinal bone metastases. Most metastatic spine diseases arise from the vertebral column, with the posterior half of the vertebral body being the most common initial focus, and/or the paravertebral region, tracking along the spinal nerves to enter the spinal column via the intervertebral foramina. An 82-year-old man diagnosed with sigmoid colon cancer and liver metastases experienced intractable pain described as being like an electric shock on the right T11 dermatome. ⋯ PVP at T11 was performed through the right osteolytic pedicle. The paroxysmal pain disappeared immediately after the operation without any complications. Removal of a vertebral metastatic tumor compressing the spinal nerve roots via a single-port, transforaminal, endoscopic approach under monitored anesthesia care without lung deflation may be an effective and safe modality for minimally invasive pain management of a single-level spinal tumor metastasis causing intractable radicular pain in patients with cancer who have generalized debilitation.