Articles: opioid.
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    Pain is a common distressing symptom in children receiving pediatric palliative care. Both in children with cancer, but especially in children with progressive neurodegenerative and chromosomal conditions with CNS impairment pain is common, and often under-recognized and undertreated. ⋯ Successful pain treatment and prevention usually include integrative 'nonpharmacological' therapies, rehabilitation, psychology and spirituality in addition to pharmacology and regional anesthesia. This review article will address these effective components of multimodal pediatric analgesia and present starting doses of basic analgesia, opioids and adjuvants analgesia in infants, children and adolescents with serious illness. 
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    To support or refute the hypothesis that opioid tapering in chronic pain patients (CPPs) improves pain or maintains the same pain level by taper completion but does not increase pain. ⋯ There is consistent type 3 and 4 study evidence that opioid tapering in CPPs reduces pain or maintains the same level of pain. However, these studies represented lower levels of evidence and were not designed to test the hypothesis, with the evidence being marginal in quality with large amounts of missing data. These results then primarily reveal the need for controlled studies (type 2) to address this hypothesis. 
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    Int J Obstet Anesth · Nov 2019 Review Meta AnalysisInduction opioids for caesarean section under general anaesthesia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.Remifentanil and alfentanil effectively reduce the pressor response to intubation for general anaesthesia cesarean section, without depressing neonatal Apgar scores. pearl
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    Int J Obstet Anesth · Nov 2019 ReviewSystemic adjunct analgesics for cesarean delivery: a narrative review.It is critical to adequately treat postoperative cesarean delivery pain. The use of parenteral or neuraxial opioids has been a mainstay, but opioids have side effects that can be troubling and the opioid crisis in the United States has highlighted the necessity to utilize analgesics other than opioids. Other analgesic options include neuraxial analgesics, nerve blocks such as the transversus abdominis plane block, and non-opioid parenteral and oral medications. The goal of this article is to review non-opioid systemic analgesic adjuncts following cesarean delivery, focusing on their efficacy and side effects as well as their impact on reduction of opioid requirements after surgery. 
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    Meta Analysis Comparative StudyHigh-dose versus low-dose opioid anesthesia in adult cardiac surgery: A meta-analysis.We performed a systematic comparison of high-dose and low-dose opioid anesthesia in cardiac surgery. ⋯ Our data suggest that low-dose opioids, both short acting and long acting, are safe and effective to use in adult cardiac surgery patients, independent of the clinical characteristics of the patients and the type of opioid used. In view of the current opioid epidemic, low-dose opioid anesthesia should be considered for cardiac surgery patients.