Nearly 1.5 million Americans were treated for addiction to prescription opioids or heroin in 2015, according to federal estimates, and when those people get seriously hurt or need surgery, it's often not clear, even to many doctors, how to safely manage their pain. For some former addicts, what begins as pain relief ends in tragedy.
There is a great need for new pain medications and a number of strategies for developing them. Award-winning AP medical writer Marilynn Marchione paints the current landscape.
New, persistent opioid use after surgery may be associated less with surgical pain than with other addressable, patient-level predictors, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor. "New, persistent opioid use represents a common but previously underappreciated surgical complication that warrants increased awareness," the authors write.
Proposed budget cuts to the NIH would reduce pain research funds, but are unlikely to be passed by Congress.
In 2015, more than two-thirds of fatal drug overdoses came from some form of opioid, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As experts and families search for answers, there is growing evidence of an association between high school or college sports injuries and the prescription drugs that lead to addiction.