Articles: opioid.
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Postgraduate medicine · Jan 2016
ReviewOpioid abuse-deterrent strategies: role of clinicians in acute pain management.
Opioid abuse is a healthcare and societal problem that burdens individuals, their families and the healthcare professionals who care for them. Restricting access to opioid analgesics is one option to deter abuse, but this may prevent pain patients in need from obtaining effective analgesics. ⋯ In addition, state governments and payors have enacted monitoring programs, and pharmaceutical companies continue to develop abuse-deterrent opioid formulations. Strategies for clinicians to mitigate opioid abuse include comprehensive patient assessment and universal precautions (e.g. use of multimodal analgesia and abuse-deterrent opioid formulations, urine toxicology screening, participation in prescription drug monitoring and risk evaluation and mitigation strategy programs).
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Postgraduate medicine · Jan 2016
ReviewAn overview of prodrug technology and its application for developing abuse-deterrent opioids.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classified prescription drug abuse and overdose deaths as an epidemic. Prescription drug overdose is now the leading cause of injury death, with rates that have more than doubled since 1999. This crisis has developed concurrently with the increased prescribing and availability analgesic drugs, especially opioids, resulting from an effort on the part of clinicians to address a critical need for improved pain assessment and treatment. ⋯ Abusers often attempt to extract the active drug for injection or insufflation. Prodrugs can be designed to be resistant to crushing or dissolving. In this article, we review the concept of prodrugs and introduce and examine the potential of abuse-deterrent opioid prodrugs.
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Multicenter Study
Fibromyalgia syndrome care of Iraq- and Afghanistan-deployed Veterans in Veterans Health Administration.
Little is known regarding fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) care among Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation New Dawn (OIF/OEF/OND) Veterans. Current recommendations include interdisciplinary, team-based combined care approaches and limited opioid use. In this study of OIF/OEF/OND Veterans who accessed Veterans Health Administration services between 2002 and 2012, we hypothesized that combined care (defined as at least 4 primary care visits/yr with visits to mental health and/or rheumatology) versus <4 primary care visits/yr only would be associated with lower risk of at least 2 opioid prescriptions 12 mo following an FMS diagnosis. ⋯ Also, combined care was associated with at least 2 nonopioid pain-related prescriptions, a practice supported by evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. In tandem, these results provide mixed evidence of benefit of combined care for FMS. Future studies of healthcare encounter characteristics, care coordination, and benefits for Veterans with FMS are needed.
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Patients with a history of substance use disorder (SUD) are more likely to be prescribed opioid medications for chronic pain than patients without an SUD history; however, little is known about prescription opioid therapy in populations composed exclusively of patients with SUD. This study examined correlates of prescription opioid therapy in 214 Veterans with chronic noncancer pain and an SUD history. Participants completed psychosocial questionnaires and participated in a structured mental health diagnostic interview, and medical diagnoses and opioid pharmacy data were abstracted from their Department of Veterans Affairs electronic medical records. ⋯ Relative to participants prescribed no or short-term opioid therapy, participants who were prescribed long-term opioid therapy had a greater number of pain diagnoses; reported higher levels of pain severity, interference, and catastrophizing; and endorsed lower chronic pain self-efficacy. In a multivariate model, number of pain diagnoses and pain interference were associated with a greater likelihood of being prescribed long-term opioid therapy after controlling for demographic and clinical characteristics. Findings highlight the poor pain-related functioning in patients with SUD histories who are prescribed long-term opioid therapy.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Effect of N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Antagonist Dextromethorphan on Opioid Analgesia in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
Objective. Pain control is an essential goal in the management of critical children. Narcotics are the mainstay for pain control. ⋯ Conclusions. Dextromethorphan has no effect on opioid requirement for control of acute pain in children admitted with acute critical care illness in PICU. The registration number for this trial is NCT01553435.