Opioid Analgesics Are More Dangerous For Health Than The Non-Opioid Analgesics

Opioid Analgesics Are More Dangerous For Health Than The Non-Opioid Analgesics.
Two supplemental studies suggest that Medicare patients who away with opioid painkillers such as codeine, Vicodin or Oxycontin expression higher fitness risks, including death, basics problems or fractures, compared to those winsome non-opioid analgesics. However, it's not clear if the painkillers are just responsible for the differences in risk, experts said, and other factors could revelry a role ayurvedic. And one pain specialist who's chummy with the findings said they don't reflect the experiences of doctors who've prescribed the drugs.

In one study, researchers examined a database of Medicare recipients in two states who were prescribed one of five kinds of opiod painkillers from 1996-2005. They looked at almost 6,300 patients who took one of these five painkillers: codeine phosphate, hydrocodone bitartrate (best known in its Vicodin form), oxycodone hydrochloride (Oxycontin), propoxyphene hydrochloride (Darvon), and tramadol hydrochloride (Ultram). Those who took codeine were 1,6 times more able to have suffered from cardiovascular problems after 180 days, while patients on hydrocodone seemed to be at higher hazard of fractures than those who took tramadol and propoxyphene.

After 30 days, those who took oxycodone were 2,4 times more proper to go for a burton than those attractive hydrocodone, and codeine users were twice as qualified to die, although the slew of deaths was small. The look at authors caveat that their findings are surprising in some ways and penury to be confirmed by further research. Commenting on the study, Dr Russell K Portenoy, chairman of the unit of torture pharmaceutical and palliative charge at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, said that the findings are of restrictive value because many other factors could illustrate the differences between the drugs, such as how go hungry physicians ramped up the doses of patients.

So "I would suggest that readers note this as an commentary and stop for the next set of studies to tax to figure out if there's any reality in there in terms of risk," he said. A jiffy study published in the same issue of the journal compared opioid painkillers against non-opioid analgesics, and found that sufferer "adverse events" were more in all probability when an opioid was taken.

A team led by Dr Damiel H Solomon of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, compared the security of opioids against non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, which count aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen) and "coxib" drugs such as Celebrex (celecoxib). They tracked outcomes for almost 13000 Medicare recipients who took such affliction relievers between 1999 and 2005.

The Boston crew found that patients on opioids had higher rates of adverse events for the most part than did kinfolk alluring an NSAID or a coxib drug. For example, 101 of every 1000 medicament opioid users suffered a crack in a given year versus 19 of every 1000 citizenry taking another type of painkiller.

Coxibs and opioids were also associated with a higher gamble for cardiac events compared to NSAID use, the side found. What to do if you're taking an opioid? "There's no puzzle that opioid drugs carry important risks," Portenoy said provillus. "If you have habitual pain, your doctor should optimize the dosing and be managing the risk: not only the chance of side effects and toxicities but also the endanger of things like drug abuse".