There may be good news for those trying to manage the pain associated with severe burns, cancer and operations-and for the hospitals that treat them.A company has developed a new approach to pain management that involves an innovative way to deliver a well-known drug. The approach calls for patients to administer the proven painkiller morphine themselves by using a nasal spray. Thanks to a novel ingredient derived from shellfish, morphine sprayed into the nose gets into the bloodstream within minutes. Blood levels of morphine from this nasal spray equal those reached using IV infusion.
Experts say this new approach has a number of advantages:
• The ability to self-regulate pain medicine provides the benefit of control to the patient and avoids doses that are higher than necessary to achieve safe and effective management of pain.
• Delivering the morphine by nasal spray eliminates the invasive nature of IV administration or the need for costly and complicated devices.
• It also eliminates the personnel and equipment necessary to establish an IV line, and eliminates the risk of needlestick injuries including infections.
• After the device is used, no remaining drug is available for misuse.
Prescription pain medications in the U.S. generate approximately $20 billion in annual sales. Experts say that figure is expected to grow 10 percent a year for the next six years.
However, while the market is growing, many believe there are still a number of unmet needs. The U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reports that a number of cancer patients report that they are dissatisfied with their current pain medication.
The company that developed the nasal spray, publicly-held Innovative Drug Delivery Systems, Inc. (IDDS), uses proprietary technologies to develop simple and user-friendly routes of analgesic drug administration. These methods of administration are intended to improve either efficiency, effectiveness or both.
© 2005 HealthNewsDigest.com