The pronounced increase in prescribing opioid analgesics for chronic noncancer pain has led to escalating concern about potential harms.1 The increase in opioid prescribing is paralleled by an increase in overdose deaths, and there is a dose-related elevation in the risk of […]
Journal Articles
Prescription of Long-Acting Opioids and Mortality in Patients With Chronic Noncancer Pain
Hospital Prescribing of Opioids to Medicare Beneficiaries
Prescribing of opioids at the time of discharge from an acute hospitalization represents an important but under-described potential avenue through which previously opioid-naïve patients may develop long-term use. Read the full PDF article Here
Moving Beyond Misuse and Diversion: The Urgent Need to Consider the Role of Iatrogenic Addiction in the Current Opioid Epidemic
An epidemic of drug overdose deaths has led to calls for programs and policies to limit misuse and diversion of opioid medications. Any parallel call to consider the risk of iatrogenic addiction when treating pain has been muted in comparison. […]
The Effectiveness and Risks of Long-Term Opioid Therapy for Chronic Pain
Increases in prescriptions of opioid medications for chronic pain have been accompanied by increases in opioid overdoses, abuse, and other harms and uncertainty about longterm effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to evaluate evidence on the effectiveness and harms of […]
Long-Term Opioid Therapy Reconsidered
In the past 20 years, primary care physicians have greatly increased prescribing of long-term opioid therapy. However, the rise in opioid prescribing has outpaced the evidence regarding this practice. Increased opioid availability has been accompanied by an epidemic of opioid […]