Text Message Program Shows 60 Percent of Opioid Tablets Unused After Common Procedures

 

University of Pennsylvania :A Penn Medicine new study of how text messaging could inform opioid prescribing practices showed that 60 percent of opioids are left over after orthopaedic and urologic procedures.More than half of the opioid tablets prescribed for patients who underwent orthopaedic or urologic procedures went unused in a new study by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Using an automated text messaging system that regularly checked in with patients on their pain and opioid use, the study also showed that most opioids are taken within the first few days following a procedure and may not be necessary to manage pain even just a week following a procedure. The study was published today in JAMA Network Open.

For opioid-dependent newborns, a mother’s love is the best medicine

Yale: More than six months after his paper on his new treatment for babies born to mothers addicted to opiates appeared in the journal Pediatrics, Matthew Grossman, M.D., HS ’06, assistant professor of pediatrics, is seeing his methods slowly but steadily take hold. [See “More mom, fewer drugs,” Yale Medicine Magazine, Autumn 2016].

Opioids : Does the Dose Make the Poison?

Harvard: The possible link between physicians’ opioid prescription patterns and subsequent abuse has occupied the attention of a nation in the throes of an opioid crisis looking for ways to stem what experts have dubbed an epidemic. Most clinical efforts have focused on minimizing risk through dosage management, but a new study led by investigators at Harvard Medical School suggests that the dose may not always make the poison.

Spinal cord stimulation relieves back pain without opioids

Washington: Doctors who treat patients suffering from back pain are exploring new approaches that help some patients avoid opioid drugs. The highly addictive prescription painkillers are fueling an epidemic of abuse and overdose deaths. One opioid-free option available at the Washington University Pain Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital involves stimulating the spinal cord with very short pulses of electricity. Patients can’t feel the electrical stimulation, yet it often effectively can mask the perception of pain. Spinal cord simulation to relieve pain is not new. It first was introduced many years ago, but older stimulators produce a tingling sensation designed to replace pain with less unpleasant tingling. The newer, high-frequency spinal cord stimulators deliver more energy but without the tingling sensations.

Opioids are driving increase in cocaine overdose deaths

NIH: An examination of national trend data shows that heroin and synthetic opioids are driving a recent increase in cocaine-related overdose deaths. The assessment was conducted by scientists at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (CDC), and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The report showed that cocaine-related overdose deaths increased between 2000 and 2006, and declined between 2006 and 2010 (consistent with a reduction in supply and an increase in street prices). However, cocaine-related overdose deaths increased after 2010, despite decreased cocaine use. The scientists found that this latest increase was related to cocaine-related overdose deaths involving opioids, primarily heroin or synthetic opioids. This also corresponds to the growing supply and use of heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl in the United States. Data on drug overdose deaths were collected from the CDC’s National Vital Statistics System.

Use of multiple brain-affecting drugs is rising among seniors, despite risks, research finds

Ann Arbor: Tranquilizers, antidepressants, opioids and anti-psychotic medications carry special risks for older people, alone or in combination. The sharpest rise occurred in seniors living in rural areas, where the rate of doctor visits by seniors taking combinations of such drugs – opioids, antidepressants, tranquilizers and antipsychotics – more than tripled. This “polypharmacy” of drugs that act on the central nervous system is concerning, the researchers say, because of the special risks to older adults that come with combining multiple such medications. Falls – and the injuries that can result from them – are the chief concern, along with problems with driving, memory and thinking.

Nonmedical Use of Prescription Drugs Among Young People: A Growing Global Concern

Columbia: Balancing a country’s need to make prescription drugs available to those in need while simultaneously curbing nonmedical use is one of our greatest challenges, according to a perspective article just published by Silvia Martins, MD, PhD, associate professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and a colleague at American University of Beirut. The article published in World Psychiatry, the journal of the World Psychiatric Association, cites research finding increased rates of deaths worldwide from prescription opioids as high as 550 percent depending on country and time-period. For example, from 2000 to 2014, there was a 200 percent increase in overdose deaths due to opioid use.

Source of opioids’ side effects identified

Stanford: Stanford researchers said they have identified the receptors to which opioids bind to produce tolerance to the drugs and increased sensitivity to pain. They also found that a commercially available drug limited those side effects in mice. A commercially available drug may help drastically reduce two side effects of opioid painkillers — a growing tolerance to them and a paradoxical increased sensitivity to pain — without affecting the drugs’ ability to reduce pain, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Opioids and Stimulants Misuse: What Does Employment Have to Do With It?

Columbia: Researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health found that employment status is a factor in nonmedical use of prescription opioids and prescription stimulants. Unemployed workers had the highest risk of misusing prescription opioids, and those out of the workforce entirely were most at risk for misusing prescription stimulants. The study is among the first to analyze the relationship between employment status and nonmedical prescription drug-users over the age of 25 and show how social characteristics influence nonmedical prescription drug use. The findings are published online in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.