Narcotic painkillers such as morphine, fentanyl and oxycodone are considered highly addicting. Because of their abuse potential, the Drug Enforcement Administration requires physicians and pharmacists to account for each and every prescription for such opioid analgesics. Doctors have been reluctant to prescribe such drugs except when patients are in acute pain such as after an accident or surgery. Terminal cancer patients have sometimes been undertreated for severe pain because physicians worried about addiction.
Now, a new study suggests that treating chronic pain unrelated to cancer rarely results in addiction. Independent researchers participating in the Cochrane Collaboration analyzed data from 17 studies that included nearly 90,000 people. They found that fewer than 5 percent of the study subjects became dependent on the opioid medications they had been prescribed. In some cases patients in pain took their pills for years without developing a need to increase the dose. People who have problems with alcohol or illegal drugs do seem to be at higher risk for developing dependence. The low rates of addiction in these studies should provide physicians confidence that they can prescribe such drugs safely to many patients suffering from chronic pain.
