UK researchers investigate alternatives to long-term opioid use

A UK university has been awarded £2.4 million to research overprescribing of opioids, and how to improve treatment of patients with persistent pain without long-term use of these morphine-like drugs. The government-backed National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) awarded the money to researchers from Keele University and will cover pain caused by a range of conditions, including osteoarthritis and back pain.
Use of opioid painkillers such as codeine and fentanyl has dramatically increased in the UK over the past 20 years, rising by a third between 1998 and 2016. The situation is even worse in the US, where over-reliance on highly addictive drugs such as codeine and fentanyl is implicated in tens of thousands of deaths each year. The NIHR said that people with persistent pain who take long-term opioids tend to have a worse quality of life than those who do not take them and are more likely to suffer bone fractures, addiction, and overdose, especially at high doses. In most cases, patients with persistent pain are managed by their GP – but contrary to national guidelines they are not often reviewed.