Fentanyl News and Research

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Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opiate analgesic similar to but more potent than morphine. It is typically used to treat patients with severe pain, or to manage pain after surgery. It is also sometimes used to treat people with chronic pain who are physically tolerant to opiates. It is a schedule II prescription drug.

Scientists developing new vaccines against heroin and prescription opioids

Heroin and prescription opioid abuse and fatal overdoses are a public health emergency in the United States. Vaccines offer a potential new strategy to treat opioid abuse and prevent fatal opioid overdoses.

12 Apr 2018

Using biomimicry for faster detection of disease outbreaks

Our immune systems are made up of billions of white blood cells searching for signs of infections and foreign invaders, ready to raise the alarm.

9 Apr 2018

Staying alive: How to fight an opioid addiction

If you or a loved one wants to beat an opioid addiction, first make sure you have a handy supply of naloxone, a medication that can reverse an overdose and save your life.

2 Apr 2018

Omissions on death certificates lead to undercounting of opioid overdoses

In a refrigerator in the coroner’s office in Marion County, Ind., rows of vials await testing. They contain blood, urine and vitreous, the fluid collected from inside a human eye.

29 Mar 2018

Frequent and public opioid users may be best candidates for naloxone training

In response to America's opioid crisis, public health departments and community organizations across the country have started to train opioid users to reverse overdoses in other users with the opioid-blocker naloxone.

26 Mar 2018

Congress tackles the opioid epidemic. But how much will it help?

The nation's opioid epidemic has been called today's version of the 1980s AIDS crisis. In a speech Monday, President Donald Trump pushed for a tougher federal response, emphasizing a tough-on-crime approach for drug dealers and more funding for treatment.

20 Mar 2018

The other opioid crisis: Hospital shortages lead to patient pain, medical errors

Even as opioids flood American communities and fuel widespread addiction, hospitals are facing a dangerous shortage of the powerful painkillers needed by patients in acute pain, according to doctors, pharmacists and a coalition of health groups.

16 Mar 2018

New Canadian guideline lays out optimal strategies for treatment of opioid addiction

A new Canadian guideline for managing opioid use disorders lays out the optimal strategies for the treatment of opioid addiction, including recommending opioid agonist treatment with buprenorphine-naloxone as the preferred first-line treatment.

5 Mar 2018

Real-time information about stamp bags could serve as early warning of new illegal drugs

In just two years, the powerful opioid fentanyl went from nonexistent to detected in more than 1 in 7 stamp bags analyzed by the Allegheny County Office of the Medical Examiner, according to an analysis led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Stamp bags are small wax packets that contain mixtures of illicit drugs, most commonly heroin, packaged for sale and sometimes stamped with a graphical logo by drug dealers to market their contents.

2 Feb 2018

Fentanyl may put users at risk of amnesia, WVU report reveals

A case report by a West Virginia University neuropsychologist suggests a new reason fentanyl- alone, or in combination with stimulants- may put substance users at risk, whether they take it knowingly or not. It may cause amnesia.

31 Jan 2018

Analysis reveals drop in long-term opioid use among military veterans

A new study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, published by Springer, shows that opioid prescribing has dropped after a peak in 2012. Lead author Katherine Hadlandsmyth of the Iowa City VA Healthcare System and the University of Iowa in the US further noted that the decline was mostly due to decreases in long-term opioid prescribing, which carries much greater risk for harmful side effects, addiction and overdose, relative to short-term prescribing.

30 Jan 2018

Death in the family: An uncle’s overdose spurs Medicaid official to change course

Andrey Ostrovsky's family did not discuss what killed his uncle. He was young, not quite two weeks past his 45th birthday, when he died, and he had lost touch with loved ones in his final months. Ostrovsky speculated he had committed suicide.

29 Jan 2018

Managing tobacco smoking leads to reductions in opioid use, study shows

In a six-month study recently concluded, a research unit affiliated with two hospital institutions and a university in Ottawa found that a reduction in the number of cigarettes smoked daily also reduced a smoker's dependence on opioids.

25 Jan 2018

Drug overdose deaths soar nationally but plateau in some Western states

The opioid crisis on the East Coast and in the Midwest has fueled a national surge in drug deaths, even as fatal overdoses have decreased or remained stable in parts of the West, new federal data show.

8 Jan 2018

Guidelines to control opioid prescribing for post-surgery pain

A recent study, conducted at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH, suggests that more vigilant prescribing guidelines could reduce the number of opioid pills a patient receives after surgery, whilst still meeting pain management needs.

1 Dec 2017

Study highlights need to focus on all opioid prescribers to curb epidemic

A cross-section of opioid prescribers that typically do not prescribe large volumes of opioids, including primary care physicians, surgeons and non-physician health care providers, frequently prescribe opioids to high-risk patients, according to a new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

29 Nov 2017

Researchers find link between negative emotions and higher opioid use in people with sickle cell disease

In a small study using data from daily electronic patient diaries, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have found a link between negative emotions, such as sadness and anxiety, and higher opioid use in people with sickle cell disease whose pain levels were self-reported as relatively low.

27 Nov 2017

New pain relievers reduce opiate overdose risk

Scientists on the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed new opioid pain relievers that reduce pain on par with morphine but do not slow or stop breathing-;the cause of opiate overdose.

16 Nov 2017

Epidural pain relief with fentanyl during childbirth does not affect early breastfeeding success

Including the opioid fentanyl in the solution used to maintain an epidural during childbirth does not appear to affect the success of breastfeeding six weeks after delivery, according to a study published in Anesthesiology, the peer-reviewed medical journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. Previous research has suggested fentanyl might be associated with early termination of breastfeeding.

8 Nov 2017

Researchers develop new drug screening method for rapid, accurate identification of fentanyl

Researchers at McMaster University have developed a new drug screening technique that could lead to the rapid and accurate identification of fentanyl, as well as a vast number of other drugs of abuse, which up until now have been difficult to detect by traditional urine tests.

3 Nov 2017