The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved new labeling for morphine sulfate and naltrexone hydrochloride extended-release capsules. The drug, marketed as Embeda, is an opioid analgesic used to treat pain severe enough to require daily, around-the-clock, long-term opioid treatment and ...
I read with great interest your interview with Virginia LeBaron, PhD, APRN, about barriers to adequate pain control (“Despite Growing Awareness, the Global Crisis of Untreated Cancer Pain Persists,” The ASCO Post, October 15, 2014). Having served as the medical director of a hospice, I am...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved hydrocodone bitartrate (Hysingla ER), an extended-release opioid analgesic to treat pain severe enough to require daily, around-the-clock, long-term opioid treatment and for which alternative treatment options are inadequate. The product...
Key evidence gaps and research priorities must be addressed “so that physicians can recognize patients for whom opioids are most appropriate and use optimal regimens for these patients,” according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Pathways to Prevention Workshop final report on the role of ...
One persistent and potentially debilitating problem breast cancer patients suffer with is postoperative pain. Studies show that proper pain management is an essential component in the healing process, but undertreatment of pain symptoms remains an ongoing issue in the oncology community. Opioids,...
Cancer-related pain does not exist in a vacuum. To effectively treat it, clinicians should understand the contributing factors. Proper assessment and management of cancer pain at the end of life can significantly alleviate patient suffering, according to Eduardo Bruera, MD, FAAHPM, Department Chair ...
After presenting results of a study showing that injecting a standard analgesic combination into trigger points of pain along the inframammary fold relieved postmastectomy pain, Laura J. Esserman, MD, MBA, Director of the Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center and Co-Leader of the Breast Oncology...
Despite multiple guidelines from national and international organizations,1,2 the quality of current cancer pain management remains inadequate. The World Health Organization’s three-step analgesic dosing ladder forms the foundation of these guidelines.3 Yet, as noted by William S. Rosenberg, MD,...
The statistics are staggering. Despite the development of novel analgesics and the increasing awareness of the importance of adequately controlling pain from cancer or its treatment, up to 50% of patients undergoing treatment and between 70% and 90% of patients with advanced disease experience some ...
Bookmark Title: A Nation in Pain: Healing Our Biggest Health ProblemAuthor: Judy ForemanPublisher: Oxford University PressPublication date: May 1, 2015Price: $19.95, paperback; 464 pages The subject of pain has been written about extensively, from the intriguing sociopolitical history of opium to...
Bone is a common site of metastasis for prostate, breast, and lung cancers, and palliative radiotherapy is often used to treat these metastases. Although it is an effective therapy, severe pain flare following radiation occurs in about one-third of patients. It usually resolves within 10 days, but...
Samuel Chao, MD, of Cleveland Clinic, discusses the QMAP program and data-driven management, which offer ways to improve consistency and drive quality in radiation oncology departments (Abstract 39).
Alysa M. Fairchild, MD, of the Cross Cancer Institute and the University of Alberta, discusses her study on the use of dexamethasone to reduce pain flare in patients receiving palliative radiotherapy for bone metastases (Abstract LBA6663).