Opioid

Patients on long-term opioid treatment struggle to receive continuous, high-quality care, two experts wrote in a research letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Unless “urgent interventions” occur, North America could see 1.2 million additional opioid overdose deaths by 2029, according to a commission formed in response to rising opioid-related mortality rates.

A new medical education curriculum in an area hit hard by the opioid epidemic will help fill a gap in addiction management training, according to a press release.

As many as 9% of Medicare beneficiaries with knee osteoarthritis use opioids chronically, while 21% are occasional users, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

Efforts should be made to increase multimodal pain management and reduce inappropriate prescribing of benzodiazepine to improve the safety of long-term opioid therapy among cancer survivors, according to results of a study in Cancer.

For some patients who undergo cardiac surgery, discharge without an opioid prescription for pain management is feasible, researchers reported in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

Researchers have created a wearable device that can detect and reverse opioid overdoses, according to study results.

Opioid use among people dying of cancer declined substantially from 2007 to 2017, according to study results published in Journal of Clinical Oncology.

President Joe Biden on Friday announced his intention to nominate cardiologist Robert Califf, MD, MACC, to lead the FDA for a second time.

Prescription opioid dispensing decreased for patients with schizophrenia, as well as those with bipolar disorder, between 2015 and 2019, according to study results presented at NEI Congress.