Articles: opioid.
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The use of opioids for both benign and cancer-related chronic pain has increased exponentially over the last few years. For this reason, increasing numbers of such patients are presenting for surgery. ⋯ Patients treated with opioids have special needs in the perioperative setting and it is the anesthesiologist's responsibility to manage these needs optimally. The aim of the present paper is to briefly orient the reader in the management of postoperative pain in patients chronically treated with licit opioids.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2015
Patterns of community-based opioid prescriptions in people dying of cancer.
Studies of opioid use in cancer patients have been cross-sectional or have focused on mean consumption over a specific time interval. ⋯ Patients dying of cancer require increasing doses of opioids over time; although we cannot distinguish the relative contributions of disease progression and opioid tolerance, age and certain cancers seem related to this phenomenon. Given the potentially prohibitive cost of prospective epidemiological studies, more elaborate clinical administrative databases that include regular pain assessment are necessary to determine optimal opioid use and factors associated with dose increases over time at a population level.
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Chronic noncancer pain (CNCP) and prescription opioid use is a highly complex and growing health care issue in Canada. Many quantitative research studies have investigated the effectiveness of opioids for chronic pain; however, gaps remain in the literature regarding the personal experience of using opioids and their impact on those experiencing CNCP. ⋯ Although there were many negative aspects to using opioids daily, the positive effects outweighed the negative for most participants and most of the negative aspects were socioculturally induced rather than caused by the drug itself. The present study highlighted the complexities involved in using prescription opioids daily for management of CNCP for individuals living with pain.
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2015
A retrospective, matched cohort study of potential drug-drug interaction prevalence and opioid utilization in a diabetic peripheral neuropathy population initiated on pregabalin or duloxetine.
Anticipating and controlling drug-drug interactions (DDIs) in older patients with painful diabetic peripheral neuropaty (pDPN) presents a significant challenge to providers. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of newly initiated pregabalin or duloxetine treatment on Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug (MAPD) plan pDPN patients' encounters with potential drug-drug interactions, the healthcare cost and utilization consequences of those interactions, and opioid utilization. ⋯ The significantly higher prevalence of potential DDIs and potential cost impact found in pDPN duloxetine users, relative to pregabalin users, underscore the importance of considering DDIs when selecting a treatment.
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Journal of pain research · Jan 2015
Analysis of opioid-mediated analgesia in Phase III studies of methylnaltrexone for opioid-induced constipation in patients with chronic noncancer pain.
Subcutaneous methylnaltrexone is efficacious and well tolerated for opioid-induced constipation (OIC) but may theoretically disrupt opioid-mediated analgesia. ⋯ Methylnaltrexone did not affect opioid-mediated analgesia in patients with chronic noncancer pain and OIC.