Background: Breakthrough pain is an exacerbation of occurring in patients with chronic who receive opioid therapy every day. has not been routinely recognized, evaluated and treated. This study aimed to analyze the utilization opiates analgesics, including dose regimentation, frequency use, actual adverse effects cancer breakthrough pain.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The study's objective was to identify patients at risk for ineffective pain management using patient-specific opioid prescription data. METHODS We conducted a retrospective review of payer opioid prescription data and patient charts from a rural family medicine group with a residency program. Sixty-one patients were identified who had received three or more prescript...

BACKGROUND Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) patients have an increased rate of chronic pain, particularly peripheral neuropathy. This disease burden causes considerable disability and negatively affects quality of life. Pain is undertreated and more complex to manage in these patients for a number of reasons, including complex anti-retroviral drug regimens, higher risks of side effects, and h...

The Institute ofCancer Research receives financial support from the Cancer Research Campaign and the Medical Research Council. PJH is supported by the Cancer Research Campaign. We thank Felicity Fleetwood for typing the manuscript. 1 Hanks GW, Hoskin PJ. Opioid analgesics in the management of pain in patients with cancer. A review. Palliative Medicine 1987;1: 1-25. 2 Duthie JR, Nimmo WS. Advers...

Opioids are widely prescribed pain relievers with multiple side effects and potential complications. They produce analgesia via G-protein-protein coupled receptors: μ-, δ-, κ-opioid and opioid receptor-like 1 receptors. Bivalent ligands targeted to the oligomerized opioid receptors might be the key to developing analgesics without undesired side effects and obtaining effective treatment for opi...