Major Initiative Established to Prevent Opioid Abu…
posted by ATS
Fatal overdoses involving prescribed opioids tripled in the United States between 1999 and 2006, climbing to almost 14,000 deaths annually more than cocaine and heroin overdoses combined. Hospitalizations and emergency room visits related to prescription opioid pain medicines such as oxycodone (brand name Oxycontin) and hydrocodone (Vicodin) also increased dramatically in the same period.
Now a report in the August issue of Health Affairs describes a major initiative at Group Health to make opioid prescribing safer while improving care for patients with chronic pain. Health Affairs is the nations premier health policy…
Call For Mandatory Education for Physician Opioid …
posted by ATS
A group representing pain management physicians is calling for mandatory education for doctors who prescribe opioids. The American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP) is advocating for legislation that would require health care professionals who prescribe drugs to receive specialized training. Several such bills are currently circulating in the House and Senate.
Between 80 and 90 percent of doctors in the United States have no formal training in prescribing opioid medications, says David Kloth, MD, a Connecticut-based pain management specialist and spokesperson and former president of ASIPP. I would never prescribe…
Methadone appears to be involved in a large propor…
posted by ATS
Methadone appears to be involved in a large proportion of opioid-related deaths in the U.S., researchers found.
A third of the deaths related to this painkiller class implicated methadone, although the addiction-recovery drug represents less than 5% of opioid prescriptions, according to Lynn Webster, MD, of Lifetree Pain Clinic in Salt Lake City, and colleagues.
They reported the findings in a special issue of Pain Medicine devoted to assessing the causes of recent increases in opioid-related deaths the prevention of which should be a central focus for everyone working in the field of pain medicine, Webster said in a…
Preventing Avoidable Opioid-Related Deaths Top Pri…
posted by ATS
Deaths related to prescription opioid therapy are under intense scrutiny, prompting those in pain medicine clinicians, patient advocates, and regulators to understand the causes behind avoidable mortality in legitimately treated patients. Studies reporting on statistics, causes, and adverse events involving opioid treatment are now available in a special supplement of Pain Medicine, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM).
Opioids are prescribed to treat moderate to severe pain and include extended-release opioid analgesic drugs such as methadone, morphine, and…
Opioid Deaths and Sales
posted by ATS
Sales of opioid analgesics, such as oxycodone and hydrocodone, have increased more than 600% since 1997, according to data from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Opioid analgesic sales increased from 96 milligrams per person in 1997 to 698 milligrams per person in 2007. During the same time period, the number of unintentional deaths involving opioid analgesics quadrupled, from 2,901 in
1999 to 11,499 in 2007 (the most recent year for which data are available). The increase in deaths and sales are highly correlated (r=0.99), supporting previous research1 showing a strong, statistically significant correlation between states with…
Deaths from opioid use have doubled
posted by ATS
Deaths from opioid use in Ontario, Canada, have doubled since 1991 and the addition of long-acting oxycodone to the drug formulary was associated with a 5-fold increase in oxycodone-related deaths, found a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Most of these additional deaths were accidental.
Opioids are among the most commonly prescribed medications in Canada and are often used for patients with chronic non-malignant pain. Other studies have argued that prescribing is not a major contributor to the adverse health effects of opioid abuse, yet this study suggests that increased rates of opioid prescriptions are a…
Suboxone: Buprenorph…
posted by ATS
Buprenorphine is a synthetic opioid that is used for pain management and was approved in 2002 to treat opioid dependence. This issue of the CESAR FAX answers frequently asked questions about buprenorphine. Future issues will provide more detailed information on buprenorphine retail…
Deaths Related To Prescription Opioid Therapy
posted by ATS
LifeSource , a nonprofit organization established to fund healthcare-related projects, is addressing the nations biggest healthcare problem. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 29 million Americans age 12 and older misused extended-release and long-acting opioids in 2002, climbing to more than 33 million in 2007. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that the number of emergency department visits for nonmedical use of opioid analgesics from the year 2004 to the year 2008 increased from 144,600 visits to 305,900 visits. That is an increase of 111 percent. The number continued to increase another 29 percent from the…
Analysis Of Opioid Prescription Practices Finds Ar…
posted by ATS
An analysis of national prescribing patterns shows that more than half of patients who received an opioid prescription in 2009 had filled another opioid prescription within the previous 30 days. This report also suggested potential opportunities for intervention aimed at reducing abuse of prescription opioids.
Researchers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health, will publish results of this analysis in this weeks Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
More research is needed to see if current practices are working, with a closer look at why so many…
Epidemic: Facts about opioid crisis
posted by ATS
From 1997 to 2007, the milligram per person use of prescription opioids in the U.S. increased from 74 milligrams to 369 milligrams, an increase of 402 percent