| Podcast
Currently there are more than a dozen abuse deterrent formulations (ADF) on the market, and several formulations that have abuse deterrent properties but do not carry the official FDA designation. This session will highlight what constitutes an ADF, and the benefits, pitfalls, and drawbacks for...
| Article
A 2-year study conducted by a multidisciplinary team of cancer specialists and surgeons from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has concluded that opioids are seldom required for post-surgical pain management. The study followed 1,231 patients who underwent gynecologic or abdominal surgery and...
| Article
In a presentation at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2018, clinicians from Cleveland Clinic Akron General Hospital detailed a treatment protocol that avoids the use of opioids following colorectal surgery and that results in shorter hospital stays. Lead author Sophia Horattas, MD...
| Article
Practitioners end up at risk in drug testing because they lack knowledge of the policies that payors put out on medical necessity. They also can get into a lot of trouble if they don’t understand the mechanics of the clinical laboratory regarding presumptive testing and definitive testing. It’s...
| Article
Practitioners have been outspoken in describing how they feel a lack of confidence in their own abilities to use opioids, in who to use them, and how to use them. If you couple that with their lack of knowledge about the alternatives to opioids, you really have a situation that is bound to fail...
| Article
I definitely would agree that methadone needs to be respected. I think the other thing, though, is there is such a negative stigma about it that a lot of practitioners have kind of thrown their hands up saying, ‘I don’t understand this, we’re not going to do it.’ What we learn about are always the...
| Article
I would start off by saying that methadone definitely doesn’t have a sense of humor. I think as a practitioner, you have to not only understand the literature for methadone but also the limitations of what we know of methadone. It can be very unforgiving, and so really having a respect for those...
| Article
A Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers updated data on the estimated prevalence of chronic pain in America. The report summarizes conclusions from a 2016 survey conducted in fulfillment of a National Pain...
| Article
The search for a new molecule in the face of the opioid crisis may have taken a major step forward with the recent discovery of a chemical compound, AT-121, that provides analgesia without addictive potential. Mei-Chuan Ko, PhD, professor of physiology and pharmacology at the School of Medicine...
| Article
Many states have now taken legislative action to limit first-time prescribing of opioid analgesics for acute pain, some with restrictions of as few as 3-days’ supply. Recently, the US Food and Drug Association has engaged the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to...