The Money Times - Money Matters, Loans, Finance, Credit Cards, Travel guides. The best ways to spend your money!

Improper use of painkiller patch can be lethal

by Poonam Wadhwani - December 22, 2007 - 1 comments

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday cautioned patients and doctors about the improper and potentially fatal misuse of a skin patch is prescribed to treat chronic pain, and again issued a safety warning, saying the improper use continues to cause deaths and life-threatening breathing difficulty.

Reply

Math Question: What is 2 + 6?: *

Please solve the math problem above and type in the result. e.g. for 1+1, type 2

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Subject: *

Comment: *

[quote=Poonam Wadhwani]<div class="flexinode-body flexinode-1"><div class="flexinode-textarea-1"><div class="form-item">
 <p>The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday cautioned patients and doctors about the improper and potentially fatal misuse of a skin patch is prescribed to treat chronic pain, and again issued a safety warning, saying the improper use continues to cause deaths and life-threatening breathing difficulty.</p>
</div>
</div><div class="flexinode-image-3"><div class="form-item">
 <label>Picture: </label>
 <img alt="Improper use of painkiller patch can be lethal" src="http://www.themoneytimes.com/filess/ffffffffffffff_sm.jpg" /><br /><a href="http://www.themoneytimes.com/filess/ffffffffffffff.jpg">Get original file (11KB)</a>
</div>
</div><div class="flexinode-textarea-2"><div class="form-item">
 <label>Full Article: </label>
 <p>Announcing the warning in a statement yesterday the Federal health regulators said the skin patch that delivers a potent pain killer containing the narcotic fentanyl has been involved in hundreds of deaths.</p>
<p>The FDA said the widely used fentanyl patch was being wrongly prescribed by doctors and being misused by patients. The US health watchdog warned that using fentanyl skin patch outside of approved guidelines could result in deadly overdoses.</p>
<p>The US health agency warned the fentanyl skin patch poses unique risks that doctors and patients generally fail to understand. They also urged doctors to take care in prescribing the skin patch and to make patients fully aware about how to use it.</p>
<p>"There are a small number of cases [of deaths and life-threatening side effects] that are very concerning, because they are preventable," said Dr. Bob Rappaport, the FDA's director of the Division of Anesthesia, Analgesia and Rheumatology Products.</p>
<p>"Unfortunately, we are still seeing prescribers giving these patches to patients who are not opioid-tolerant, or for treatment post surgery, for mild pain. We've even seen cases for headache," Rappaport said. "There are still cases of patients who are not using the product correctly."</p>
<p>FDA first issued the warning in 2005 in regard to the safety of the Duragesic Fentanyl patch after 120 patients taking the drug died. Now, after receiving some reports of deaths and dangerous side effects tied to misuse of fentanyl skin patches, the health agency again issued the warning, urging the manufacturers of the patches to update information and develop a medication guide for patients.</p>
<p>Made by Johnson & Johnson and sold as Duragesic, the patch was developed for cancer patients who suffer severe chronic pain and in some cases have trouble taking oral form of drug. </p>
<p>The Duragesic Fentanyl patch’s purpose is to relieve severe chronic pain, such as for sufferers of rheumatoid arthritis. One patch relieves pain for up to 3 days.</p>
<p>The patch should only be used to treat patients who have already taken narcotic painkillers and find that short-action pain killers to do completely relieve their pain, FDA said.</p>
</div>
</div></div>[/quote]

Input format

Filtered HTML

Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
You may use [inline:xx] tags to display uploaded files or images inline.
You may quote other posts using [quote] tags.

Full HTML

You may quote other posts using [quote] tags.
You may use [inline:xx] tags to display uploaded files or images inline.

More information about formatting options

Subscribe to The Money Times free via email , or grab our feed.

Your Ad Here Login/Register for free \| Add to Favorites \| Editor's Note \| Advertise on this site Subscribe Write for us Blogs Forums RSS Currency Convertor
	Your Ad Here	Thursday Dec 27
Business Personal Finance Technology Markets Investing Life Style Spending Wise Entertainment Reviews Cards

Reply

Subscribe

Navigation

Health Updates from TheMedGuru