{"id":242,"date":"2014-03-01T10:08:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T14:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jaydub.cms-devl.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/2014\/01\/01\/low-dose-opioids-may-be-safe-in-patients-with-severe-chronic-obstructive-pulmonary-disease-on-long-term-oxygen-therapy\/"},"modified":"2017-01-31T11:45:10","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T16:45:10","slug":"low-dose-opioids-may-be-safe-in-patients-with-severe-chronic-obstructive-pulmonary-disease-on-long-term-oxygen-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/2014\/03\/01\/low-dose-opioids-may-be-safe-in-patients-with-severe-chronic-obstructive-pulmonary-disease-on-long-term-oxygen-therapy\/","title":{"rendered":"Low-Dose Opioids May  be Safe in Patients with Severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease on Long-Term  Oxygen Therapy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"research-summary-body\">\n                    <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"contents\" --><\/p>\n<p>Opioid  and benzodiazepine medications have the potential to decrease some symptoms in  patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but their  safety in this population is unclear. Researchers analyzed national prospective  data from 2249 Swedish adults (\u226545 years of age; 59% women) who initiated long-term  oxygen therapy for COPD. Exposure to opioids and benzodiazepines was extracted  from a national medication registry and defined as \u22651 prescriptions in the 91  days before initiation of oxygen therapy.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In  the 91 days before study entry, 23% of participants had exposure to opioids,  24% to benzodiazepines, and 9% to both.<\/li>\n<li>50%  of participants died during a median 1.1 years of follow-up.<\/li>\n<li>Participants  who were prescribed higher doses of opioids (&gt;30 mg morphine equivalents in a  day) had higher mortality, but those prescribed lower doses (\u226430 mg) did not.<\/li>\n<li>Participants  exposed to benzodiazepines had higher mortality, but there was no definite  dose-response.<\/li>\n<li>Participants  who were prescribed high concurrent doses of opioids and benzodiazepines had  higher mortality, but those prescribed low concurrent doses did not. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- InstanceEndEditable --><\/p>\n<div class=\"research-summary-footnotes-1\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"footnotes-1\" --><!-- InstanceEndEditable -->\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"research-summary-comments\">Comments:<\/h2>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"comments\" -->This  study suggests that low-dose opioids may be safe to prescribe for  breathlessness in patients with severe COPD on oxygen therapy. Unfortunately,  the indication for opioid and\/or benzodiazepine therapy was not obtainable from  the data registry. It is not known how many participants were in hospice or  terminal care, circumstances under which the prescription of opioids and  benzodiazepines for symptom relief and comfort generally outweighs concern  about mortality risk. <!-- InstanceEndEditable --><br \/>\n                    <cite><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"name\" -->Kevin L. Kraemer, MD, MSc<!-- InstanceEndEditable --><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/cite><\/p>\n<div class=\"research-summary-footnotes\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"footnotes\" --><!-- InstanceEndEditable -->\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<h2>Reference:<\/h2>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"reference\" -->Ekstr\u00f6m  MP, Bornefalk-Hermansson A, Abernethy AP, Currow DC. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/24482539\">Safety of benzodiazepines  and opioids in very severe respiratory disease: national prospective study<\/a>. <em>BMJ. <\/em>2014;348:g445.<!-- InstanceEndEditable -->\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Opioid and benzodiazepine medications have the potential to decrease some symptoms in patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but their safety in this population is unclear. Researchers analyzed national prospective data from 2249 Swedish adults (\u226545 years of age; 59% women) who initiated long-term oxygen therapy for COPD. Exposure to opioids and benzodiazepines [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[33],"tags":[77],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2162,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions\/2162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}