When long-acting opioids are prescribed to patients for chronic pain not associated with cancer, the risk of all-cause mortality — including deaths other than overdose — increases, according to a study in JAMA.
Researchers from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn., compared the risk of death among patients on long-acting opioid therapy for chronic pain with that of patients on analgesic anticonvulsant or low-dose cyclic antidepressant treatments.
They found patients on opioids had a risk of all-cause mortality that was 1.6 times greater than the mortality of the control group patients. More than two-thirds of the deaths were not related to unintentional overdose; and more than half of those deaths were cardiovascular deaths.
"These findings should be considered when evaluating harms and benefits of treatment," the authors wrote.