Strategies to reduce the tampering and subsequent abuse of long-acting opioids: potential risks and benefits of formulations with physical or pharmacologic deterrents to tampering.

ABSTRACT: Increased prescribing of opioid analgesics for chronic noncancer pain may reflect acceptance that opioid benefits outweigh risks of adverse events for a broadening array of indications and patient populations; however, a parallel increase in the abuse, misuse, and diversion of prescription opioids has resulted. There is an urgent need to reduce opioid tampering and subsequent abuse without creating barriers to safe, effective analgesia. Similar to the "magic bullet" concept of antibiotic development (kill the bacteria without harming the patient), the idea behind reformulating opioid analgesics is to make them more difficult to tamper with and abuse by drug abusers but innocuous to the compliant patient. As antibiotics exploit differences in bacterial and human physiology, tamper-resistant

SUBMITTER: Stanos SP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3498428 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature