UNLABELLED Use of opioid analgesics for pain management has increased dramatically over the past decade, with corresponding increases in negative sequelae including overdose and death. There is currently no well-validated objective means of accurately identifying patients likely to experience good analgesia with low side effects and abuse risk prior to initiating opioid therapy. This paper disc...

Over the course of 1 to 2 years, the field has moved swiftly to investigate the functional and structural properties of the newly cloned opioid receptors. Achieving a better understanding of these macromolecules is likely to have profound implications for drug design aimed at the production of better analgesic drugs, for a more fundamental understanding of mechanisms of action of drugs of abuse...

Patients requiring acute pain management may be opioid dependent as a result of either recreational or therapeutic opioid use, including those in opioid addiction programmes. Pain in these patients is often under-estimated and under-treated. In addiction, drug-seeking behaviour differentiates it from simple dependence. With few randomised controlled trials, current evidence predominantly consis...

Links: [1] https://www.opioidrisk.com/node/142 [2] http://aps.confex.com/aps/res2008/webprogram/Session2442.html [3] https://www.opioidrisk.com/taxonomy/term/517 [4] https://www.opioidrisk.com/taxonomy/term/554 [5] https://www.opioidrisk.com/taxonomy/term/548 [6] https://www.opioidrisk.com/taxonomy/term/491 [7] https://www.opioidrisk.com/taxonomy/term/179 [8] https://www.opioidrisk.com/taxonomy...

Variation exists in patient response on analgesic treatment in terms of efficacy and safety. This variation may be in part explained by pharmacogenomics. This paper aimed to review data on pharmacogenomics of opioid analgesics focusing on the effect of genetic variation on the efficacy and safety of these agents. Current evidence suggests that pharmacogenomics contribute to variation in efficac...

Cannabinoids and opioids both produce analgesia through a G-protein-coupled mechanism that blocks the release of pain-propagating neurotransmitters in the brain and spinal cord. However, high doses of these drugs, which may be required to treat chronic, severe pain, are accompanied by undesirable side effects. Thus, a search for a better analgesic strategy led to the discovery that delta 9-tetr...

Endomorphins (endomorphin-1, H-Tyr-Pro-Trp-Phe-NH2, endomorphin-2, Tyr-Pro-Phe-Phe-NH2) are potent and selective μ-opioid receptor agonists. In order to improve the affinity and chemical stability of endomorphins, we have designed, synthesized, and characterized novel analogs with unnatural (2′, 6′-dimethyltyrosine, Dmt) and/or β-alicyclic amino acids (ACPC and ACHC). Radioligand binding assay ...

PURPOSE A cohort of pediatric patients with AML treated at hospitals contributing to the Pediatric Health Information System was used to evaluate differences in opioid utilization by sex, age, race, and insurance. METHODS Billing data were used to compute the prevalence of opioid exposure and to quantify rates of utilization among those exposed to opioids as days of use per 1000 inpatient day...

Children with pectus excavatum are treated surgical repair in a procedure known as minimally invasive of (MIRPE). MIRPE causes considerable postoperative pain, resulting the administration substantial dose opioids. This study aimed to identify perioperative factors that influence requirement for opioids children undergoing MIRPE. Retrospective data from who underwent were analyzed. A multimodal...

OBJECTIVES Most US studies of national trends in medical and nonmedical use of prescription opioids have focused on adults. Given the limited understanding in these trends among adolescents, we examine national trends in the medical and nonmedical use of prescription opioids among high school seniors between 1976 and 2015. METHODS The data used for the study come from the Monitoring the Futur...