Journal of opioid management
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Codeine is designated as one of the essential medicines of palliative care for symptoms such as pain and diarrhea. Essential drugs for palliative care are drugs that are effective for the treatment of common symptoms in palliative medicine, easily available, and are affordable. Codeine is recommended for the management of mild to moderate pain and is available as a combination product or as a stand-alone opioid. ⋯ Codeine is metabolized in the liver to inactive metabolites, which account for 90 percent of the transformed product, and morphine, which accounts for 10 percent of the transformed product and provides the main analgesic effect. The production of morphine is dependent on cytochrome oxidase 2D6 enzyme activity, which may not be fully active in some populations. The purpose of this review is to examine the efficacy of codeine for common symptoms encountered in palliative medicine, which has led to its designation as an essential medicine for palliative care.
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Neuropathic pain is initiated or caused by a primary lesion or dysfunction in the nervous system. Neuropathic pain is composed of peripheral neuropathic pain (with a primary lesion or dysfunction in the peripheral nervous system) and central neuropathic pain (CNP; with a primary lesion or dysfunction in the central nervous system). CNP may be further subdivided into supraspinal central neuropathic pain and spinal central neuropathic pain. ⋯ Thus, opioids should be considered a second- or third-line agent in any algorithm of the pharmacologic treatment of CNP. Also within CAP, it appears that supraspinal central neuropathic pain may respond less well to a trial of opioids than spinal central neuropathic pain. Moreover, under close monitoring for side effects (eg, constipation), it is suggested that clinicians may want to consider titrating to higher doses of potent opioids before the trial is judged to be unsuccessful for refractory supraspinal central neuropathic pain.