Journal of pain & palliative care pharmacotherapy
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Questions from patients about pain conditions and analgesic pharmacotherapy and responses from authors are presented to help educate patients and make them more effective self-advocates. This article contains a brief description of disc disease in young adults resulting in chronic low back pain. Topics including causes of early degeneration of disc, therapies, and suggestions for strengthening the discs are discussed.
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J Pain Palliat Care Pharmacother · Jun 2012
Randomized Controlled TrialA randomized, placebo controlled trial of oral zinc for chemotherapy-related taste and smell disorders.
Abnormalities in taste and smell are commonly reported in patients receiving chemotherapy and may hinder appetite, dietary intake, nutritional well-being, and quality of life. Oral zinc has been used to treat taste and smell abnormalities in several altered physiologic states, including renal failure, liver disease, head trauma, and pregnancy, with varying results. The authors conducted a double-blinded, placebo-controlled randomized clinic trial over 3 months. ⋯ There was no statistically significant improvement in loss or distortion of taste or smell with the addition of zinc. There was a trend toward improvement over time in all groups, except in the zinc group where there was a nonsignificant worsening in loss of smell over time. Zinc at standard doses did not provide significant benefit to taste or smell in patients receiving chemotherapy.
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J Pain Palliat Care Pharmacother · Jun 2012
ReviewAcetaminophen injection: a review of clinical information including forms not available in the United States.
Acetaminophen injection is an antipyretic and analgesic agent recently marketed in the United States as Ofirmev. A recent review published in the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy focused on the labeled uses of acetaminophen injection in the United States. ⋯ This addendum provides these citations and further insight into the strategy used to develop the review. Acetaminophen injection represents another agent for multimodal pain management.
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J Pain Palliat Care Pharmacother · Jun 2012
Off-label prescribing of medications for pain: maintaining optimal care at an intersection of law, public policy, and ethics.
For more than 60 years, regulations limited marketing of medications for off-label uses to very low levels. Some key policy changes in the late 1990s ushered in an era of deregulation of off-label marketing. Policy changes included revised United States federal law as well as modifications of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. ⋯ Attempts to limit off-label advertising by manufacturers were vigorously challenged in the courts. Other modalities are needed to maintain a clinical care environment that places the patients' best interests first. In many circumstances, an off-label medication may be in the patient's best interests; however, where there is a lower level of clinical justification, the informed consent of the patient and shared decision making of the patient is essential to optimize outcome.
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In conjunction with World Cancer Day 2012, three leading pain and palliative care organizations developed a statement on access to analgesics to provide freedom from pain as a human right. Numerous other professional organizations subsequently signed this manifesto calling upon governments, the pharmaceutical industry, and health institutions to make available immediate-release morphine at affordable prices for all in need of pain relief. This report is reprinted with permission of the originating organizations. For more information see: http://palliumindia.org/manifesto/.