Long-acting opioids have a significantly higher risk of death when compared with other medications for moderate-to-severe chronic pain.
Not only did long-acting opioids increase the risk of unintentional overdose deaths, but they were also shown to increase mortality from cardiorespiratory events and other causes.
For a new study, researchers looked at patients between 1999-2012 with chronic pain, primarily back and other musculoskeletal pain, who did not have cancer or other serious illnesses and compared those starting a long-acting opioid to those taking an alternative medication.
We were concerned that long-acting opioids might increase cardiovascular death risk, which is what we found.
