Patients with cancer treated with a World Health Organization Step III opioid use a high number of drugs. Nonopioid analgesics and corticosteroids are frequently used, but different patterns of use between countries were found. Many patients receive unneeded drugs and are at risk of serious DDIs. These findings demonstrate that drug therapy in these patients needs to be evaluated continuously.

The aim of the study conducted upon completion of obligatory palliative medicine courses among 588 medical students at two universities was to compare their attitudes toward euthanasia. Four hundred ninety-two (84.97 %) students were Catholics; 69 (11.73 %) declared they would practice euthanasia, 303 (51.53 %) would not, and 216 students (36.73 %) were not sure. The idea of euthanasia legalisation was supported by 174 (29.59 %) respondents, opposed by 277 (47.11 %), and 137 (23.30 %) were undecided. Five hundred fifty-six (94.56 %) students did not change their attitudes toward euthanasia after palliative medicine courses. Students from the two universities were found to have different opinions on practicing euthanasia, euthanasia law and possible abuse which might follow euthanasia legalisation, but they shared similar views on the choice of euthanasia if they themselves were incurably ill and the legalisation of euthanasia. Gender and religion influenced students' answers. Differences observed between medical students at the two universities might be related to gender and cultural differences.

BackgroundOpioids are the most frequently used drugs to treat pain in cancer patients. In some patients, however, opioids can cause adverse effects and drug–drug interactions. No advice concerning the combination of opioids and other drugs is given in the current European guidelines.ObjectiveTo identify studies that report clinically significant drug–drug interactions involving opioids used for pain treatment in adult cancer patients.Design and data sourcesSystematic review with searches in Embase, MEDLINE, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials from the start of the databases (Embase from 1980) through January 2014. In addition, reference lists of relevant full-text papers were hand-searched.ResultsOf 901 retrieved papers, 112 were considered as potentially eligible. After full-text reading, 17 were included in the final analysis, together with 15 papers identified through hand-searching of reference lists. All of the 32 included publications were case reports or case series. Clinical manifestations of drug–drug interactions involving opioids were grouped as follows: 1) sedation and respiratory depression, 2) other central nervous system symptoms, 3) impairment of pain control and/or opioid withdrawal, and 4) other symptoms. The most common mechanisms eliciting drug–drug interactions were alteration of opioid metabolism by inhibiting the activity of cytochrome P450 3A4 and pharmacodynamic interactions due to the combined effect on opioid, dopaminergic, cholinergic, and serotonergic activity in the central nervous system.ConclusionEvidence for drug–drug interactions associated with opioids used for pain treatment in cancer patients is very limited. Still, the cases identified in this systematic review give some important suggestions for clinical practice. Physicians prescribing opioids should recognize the risk of drug–drug interactions and if possible avoid polypharmacy.

Guidelines for the pharmacotherapy of pain in cancer patients were developed by a group of 21 experts of the Polish Association for the Study of Pain, Polish Society of Palliative Medicine, Polish Society of Oncology, Polish Society of Family Medicine, Polish Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Therapy and Association of Polish Surgeons. During a series of meetings, the experts carried out an overview of the available literature on the treatment of pain in cancer patients, paying particular attention to systematic reviews and more recent randomized studies not included in the reviews. The search was performed in the EMBASE, MEDLINE, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials databases using such keywords as “pain”, “cancer”, “pharmacotherapy”, “analgesics”, and similar. The overviewed articles included studies of pathomechanisms of pain in cancer patients, methods for the assessment of pain in cancer patients, and drugs used in the pharmacotherapy of pain in cancer patients, including non-opioid analgesics (paracetamol, metamizole, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), opioids (strong and weak), coanalgesics (glucocorticosteroids, α2-adrenergic receptor agonists, NMDA receptor antagonists, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, topical medications) as well as drugs used to reduce the adverse effects of the analgesic treatment and symptoms other than pain in patients subjected to opioid treatment. The principles of opioid rotation and the management of patients with opioidophobia were discussed and recommendations for the management of opioid-induced hyperalgesia were presented. Drugs used in different types of pain experienced by cancer patients, including neuropathic pain, visceral pain, bone pain, and breakthrough pain, were included in the overview. Most common interactions of drugs used in the pharmacotherapy of pain in cancer patients as well as the principles for the management of crisis situations. In the final part of the recommendations, the issues of pain and care in dying patients are discussed. Recommendations are addressed to physicians of different specialties involved in the diagnostics and treatment of cancer in their daily practice. It is the hope of the experts who took part in the development of these recommendations that the recommendations would become helpful in everyday medical practice and thus contribute to the improvement in the quality of care and the efficacy of pain treatment in this group of patients.

Background The adverse effects of short-term opioid analgesics are well known and acknowledged; however, the spectrum of the sequelae of long-term use seems less clear. Some effects may remain undetected but still have the potential to cause harm and reduce patients’ quality of life. Objective To review the literature on the adverse effects of long-term opioid therapy. Methods We performed a quasi-systematic search, analyzing articles published in the MEDLINE database between January 2000 and March 2021 that identified adverse effects of opioids used for chronic pain treatment. Results Growing evidence indicates that there are multiple serious adverse effects of opioid treatment. Long-term opioid use may have significant effects on the endocrine, immune, cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, and neural systems. Studies show that long-term opioid treatment increases the risk of fractures, infections, cardiovascular complications, sleep-disordered breathing, bowel dysfunction, overdose, and mortality. Opioids may potentially affect cancer development. Most consequences of the long-term use of opioids have been identified in studies of patients with non-malignant pain. Conclusion Studies indicate that long-term use of opioids increases the risk of drug-related events in a significant number of patients. Clinicians should be aware of these complications associated with prescribing opioids, discuss them with patients, prevent complications, if possible, and diagnose them early and manage adequately. More human studies are needed to assess the risk, including trials with individual opioids, because they have different adverse effect profiles.