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 recent studies suggest that Medicare patients who select opioid painkillers such as codeine, Vicodin or Oxycontin impertinence higher health risks, including death, humanity problems or fractures, compared to those taking non-opioid analgesics. However, it's not clear if the painkillers are as soon as responsible for the differences in risk and other factors could play a role. And one pain specialist who's close 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 right to have suffered from cardiovascular problems after 180 days, while patients on hydrocodone seemed to be at higher jeopardize of fractures than those who took tramadol and propoxyphene.

After 30 days, those who took oxycodone were 2,4 times more suitable to on than those taking hydrocodone, and codeine users were twice as seemly to die, although the tally of deaths was small. The reflect on authors care that their findings are surprising in some ways and have need of to be confirmed by further research. Commenting on the study, Dr Russell K Portenoy, chairman of the sphere of pain medicine and palliative care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, said that the findings are of minimal value because many other factors could detail the differences between the drugs, such as how fast physicians ramped up the doses of patients.