Morphine News and Research

Latest Morphine News and Research

Caution urged in reducing opioids for pain

After years and decades in which healthcare providers were freely prescribing opiates for all sorts of painful conditions, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published guidelines to help bring down opioid prescription rates and with them, addiction and overdose-related death rates. Though these were not binding, they urged physicians to be cautious in dealing with opioids when prescribing for pain.

13 Oct 2019

Innovative study aims to improve care for patients using opioids for long-term pain

Researchers at Keele University have launched an innovative study to improve care for patients who manage long-term pain using opioids.

8 Oct 2019

UC Davis engineers develop new test to detect opioid drugs in exhaled breath

A test to detect opioid drugs in exhaled breath has been developed by engineers and physicians at the University of California, Davis. A breath test could be useful in caring for chronic pain patients as well as for checking for illegal drug use.

4 Oct 2019

Study examines daily distribution of drugs at major U.S. children's hospital

Too many hospitals provide medications according to the practicalities of their staffing schedules rather than the ideal dosing times for their patients, according to a new study led by experts at Cincinnati Children's.

1 Oct 2019

Accelerating drug discovery process to help patients

An international research team has developed a new strategy that can predict the potential clinical implications of new therapeutic compounds based on simple cellular responses.

15 Sep 2019

Opioids after surgery overly prescribed in USA and Canada

A new study covering several institutions shows that patients recovering from surgery in the US or Canada have a 50% chance of being treated with opioids. This is seven times as high as the corresponding percentage in Sweden. Within the US, the initial dosages are likely to be over 200 morphine milligram equivalents (MME) – much more than in Canada.

5 Sep 2019

In India’s burgeoning pain market, U.S. drugmakers stand to gain

Pain, like death, is a universal phenomenon. The sour grimace on the woman's face, registering her bodily complaints to Dr. G.P. Dureja in his East Delhi office, would be recognized anywhere. Slouched shoulders, pinched forehead. She wore a willowy black kurta and cast a disapproving glance at the five pain physicians-in-training huddled behind Dureja, founder of Delhi Pain Management Centre and one of India's pioneering pain physicians.

28 Aug 2019

Australian overdose deaths - sinister new trend

The incidence of unintentional overdose leading to death is still going up in Australia, says Australia’s Annual Overdose Report 2019. Most of the drugs involved are very powerful. They include prescription opioids and benzodiazepines as well as illegal substances like heroin and crystal methamphetamine or “ice”.

27 Aug 2019

Researchers find biological system that manages cells' response to opioid drug exposure

A team at Scripps Research in Florida has discovered a biological system that manages cells' response to opioid drug exposure. The unexpected discovery offers new ideas for improving the safety of the one of the most effective, and most abused, group of pain medications.

19 Aug 2019

Small biodegradable implant for releasing local anesthetic inside the body

Patients fitted with an orthopedic prosthetic commonly experience a period of intense pain after surgery. In an effort to control the pain, surgeons inject painkillers into the tissue during the operation.

7 Aug 2019

Evidence shows ketamine is not opioid and can treat depression easily

Ketamine’s reputation as an antidepressant is restored; it’s not an opioid.

From Johns Hopkins Medicine 1 Aug 2019

Astrocytic MORs in the hippocampus responsible for conditioned place preference

If somebody asks me "are you a coffee addict?" I may say, "Yeah it seems like, but on the one condition, only in my office." I don't have that much craving for coffee at home, but just being in the office, where I used to drink coffee all the time seeking to get caffeine jitters, seems to trigger my caffeine-addicted brain.

31 Jul 2019

Change in care protocol of weight-reduction operations exceeds its desired effect

A change in the care protocol of patients undergoing weight-reduction operations exceeded its desired effect by cutting postoperative hospital stays in half, reducing postoperative hospital readmissions by 38 percent, and reducing the amount of opioids the patients were sent home with by 95 percent, according to study results from a large bariatric and metabolic surgery center in Charleston, S.C.

23 Jul 2019

Poverty tied to prolonged hospital stay for infants with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome

For infants with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome due to prenatal opioid exposure, poverty is a risk factor for prolonged length of hospital stay, reports a study in the Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

23 Jul 2019

Study finds alarmingly high rate of opioid prescriptions for osteoarthritis patients

Opioids work against severe pain but the risks of side effects and addiction are high. In the USA alone, 26 people die every day from overdoses.

8 Jul 2019

Concurrent use of benzodiazepine and opioids complicates neonatal abstinence syndrome

Babies born after being exposed to both opioids and benzodiazepines before birth are more likely to have severe drug withdrawal, requiring medications like morphine for treatment, compared to infants exposed to opioids alone, according to a Vanderbilt University Medical Center study published in Hospital Pediatrics.

1 Jul 2019