Opioids in Medicine: A Comprehensive Review on the Mode of Action and the Use of Analgesics in Different Clinical Pain States

The book centers on the treatment of pain using the appropriate opioid and a suitable co-medication whenever necessary. While many physicians or health care providers either subscribe or advocate analgesics in response to a painful situation, their basic knowledge when and how to apply them frequently is scarce. And often there is a lack of sufficient knowledge on their potential side-effects, their mode of action, 2+ their possible interactions with other agents such as ß-blockers, Ca -antagonists, ACE inhibitors and/or benzodiazepines. In addition, not all analgesics are equivalent or equally proficient at alleviating certain painful ailments. Although there have been many of articles and books written on the subject of effective pain treatment, very few have centered on the rational use of opioids. In fact opiophobia is still around with some caregivers who consider an opioid not to be the first-line drug in severe pain. On the contrary, the myth is still around that an opioid is potentially dangerous even when used in serious painful situations, and although the WHO has stated that opioids are elementary in therapeutic strategy taking into account that they are used by mouth, by the ladder, at fixed time intervals and advocating a time consistent release formulation, they are not available in every country.