Tapentadol in the management of opioid-naïve patients with cancer pain

Introduction: Tapentadol is a centrally acting analgesic with two mechanisms of action (μ opioid agonism and norepinephrine reuptake inhibition). Patients and methods: Tapentadol in 53 cancer opioid-naïve patients with chronic and/or acute pain treated with tapentadol in 3 Radiotherapy Departments from October 2011 to February 2013. Results: Patients included 18 women (33.96 %) and 35 men (66.04 %) aged 28-85 years (mean: 62.7). Treatment was suspended due to death in 16.98 %, improvement in 5.66 %, pruritus in 1.9 % and dizziness in 1.9 %. Treatment was continued in 66.03 %, and doses increased in 26.41 % to achieve analgesia while 7.5 % were switched to another drug. a) The most common cancers were head and neck in 32.1 %, lung in 24.5 % and breast in 13.2 %. b) Pain was due to: 47.16 % tumor, 18.7 % bone metastases, 13.21 % radiation therapy, 7.55 % benign processes, 7.55 % neuropathic pain and 3.77 % visceral metastases. c) Visual Analog Scale pain pre-treatment was 7.2 and post-treatment 3.3 (difference: 3.9 points), while 71.8 % progressed to mild pain (VAS ≤ 4). d) The dose most used was: 50 mg (50.9 %). e) Associated medications were: none (22.64 %), rapid-onset fentanyl (60.38 %), anticonvulsants (17 %), steroids (17 %), NSAIDs (13.2 %), morphine (5.66 %), anxiolytics (1.9 %), antidepressants (1.9 %), lidocaine 5 % (1.9 %) and acupuncture (1.9 %). f) Analgesic efficacy was achieved in 94.34 % of cases. Mean analgesia was reached by 58 % of patients and maximum analgesia was 87.5 % in one patient. g) Tapentadol was well tolerated with mild side effects (pruritus, constipation and dizziness) in 4 cases (10.7 %). Conclusions: Our data support the use of Tapentadol in cancer opioid-naïve patients with moderate-to-severe chronic or acute pain (VAS > 5). Tapentadol is an effective pain reliever with few side effects.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	López Ramírez,E., Muñoz Carmona,D. M., Contreras Martínez,J., Torre-Luque,A. de la
Format:	Digital revista
Language:	English
Published:	Inspira Network Group, S.L 2016
Online Access:	http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1134-80462016000100006
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!