Opioids are potent drugs that are widely used to control wound or cancer pain. Increasing evidence suggest that opioids mediate clinically relevant effects that go beyond their classical role as analgesics. Of note, opioids appear to modulate angiogenesis - a process that is critical in wound healing and cancer progression. In this review, we focus on pro- and anti-angiogenic facets of opioids ...

BACKGROUND In general, parental substance abuse is associated with children's emotional and behavioral problems. This study only investigated the internalizing problems (depression, anxiety and physical complains) in children of opioid or heroin-dependent parents in comparison with non-opioid dependent parents in order to determine the effects of drug dependency after excluding the confounding ...

The decision to authorize a patient for continued enrollment in a state-sanctioned medical cannabis program is difficult in part due to the uncertainty in the accuracy of patient symptom reporting and health functioning including any possible effects on other medication use. We conducted a pragmatic convenience study comparing patient reporting of previous and current prescription opioid usage ...

BACKGROUND Formularies often employ restriction policies to reduce pharmacy costs. Pregabalin, an alpha-2-delta ligand, is approved for treatment of fibromyalgia (FM); neuropathic pain (NeP) due to postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), diabetic peripheral neuropathy (pDPN), spinal cord injury; and as adjunct therapy for partial onset seizures. Pregabalin is endorsed as first-line therapy for these indi...

Chronic opioid usage (COU) is common among patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) qualified for kidney transplantation and associated with inferior post-transplant outcomes. The magnitude of COU after kidney transplantation and its impact on transplant outcomes remain unknown. We performed a single-center retrospective study aimed to describe the prevalence of COU during the first year, t...

STUDY DESIGN Randomized, controlled pilot trial. OBJECTIVE The present study is the first randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled pilot clinical trial of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for pain and patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) opioid usage among patients receiving spine surgery. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Lumbar spinal surgeries are common, and while pain is often a ...