Opioid in palliative care
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
Palliative Care
The current key text for palliative care is the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine, 3rd ed. (Doyle, D., Hanks, G., Cherney, I., and Calman, K., eds., Oxford University Press, 2004). This states that the indications for opioid administration in palliative care are:
- "Any pain of moderate or greater severity, irrespective of the underlying pathophysiological mechanism." (p.327)
- Breathlessness / shortness of breath: the largest evidence base exists for morphine. Several mechanisms are suggested for its action on breathlessness (p.605–7).
- Diarrhoea: codeine and loperamide are the most widely used opioid for this problem. Loperamide has the advantage of acting only on the gut, since very little is absorbed (p.493).
- Painful wounds: topical morphine in an aqueous gel can be an effective agent (p.392). Their use is based on the discovery of activated opioid receptors in damaged tissue.
In palliative care opioids are always used in combination with adjuvant analgesics (drugs which have an indirect effect on the pain), and as an integral part of care of the whole person.
Contraindications for Opioids in Palliative Care
In palliative care, opioids are not recommended for sedation or anxiety because experience has found them to be ineffective agents in these roles. Some opioids are relatively contraindicated in renal failure because the of accumulation of the parent drug or their active metabolites (e.g. morphine and oxycodone). Age (young or old) is not a contraindication to strong opioids.