Articles: opioid.
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Expert Opin Drug Metab Toxicol · Jan 2015
Unique pharmacology of tapentadol for treating acute and chronic pain.
Even though pain is a complex process involving many different mediators, enzymes, receptors and ion channels, pain medications usually address only individual targets. Nucynta, which addresses multiple pain targets, was the first new centrally acting analgesic to be approved by the FDA in 2008. ⋯ Although future improved, well-designed prospective, randomized double-blind controlled studies are needed to determine both the relative efficacy of tapentadol and its safety, we believe that tapentadol has the potential to become a uniquely suited opioid medication in the multi-modal management of moderate-to-severe acute and chronic pain conditions.
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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.
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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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Journal of pain research · Jan 2015
Assessment of rescue opioid use in patients with post-bunionectomy pain treated with diclofenac potassium liquid-filled capsules.
When used in multimodal analgesia for acute pain, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) may reduce the requirement for opioids during the perioperative period. To provide more insight into pain treatment during the outpatient period, we examined the use of opioid rescue medication (RM) and described the relationship between pain intensity and RM use in patients with acute pain after bunionectomy. Patients received placebo or 25 mg of a liquid-filled capsule version of the NSAID diclofenac potassium (DPLFC; n=188 patients/group) every 6 hours during the 48-hour inpatient period through the end of outpatient dosing on day 4. ⋯ In summary, this study shows that DPLFC lowers the requirement for opioids, which is associated with a reduction in the occurrence of treatment side effects, while maintaining adequate analgesia for patients with moderate acute pain in both the outpatient and outpatient periods. Patients with more severe pain are more likely to use RM, but they still use fewer opioids when treated with DPLFC. This suggests that multimodal treatment using DPLFC and an opioid may offer an important clinical benefit in the treatment of acute pain, including in the home environment.