PAINWeek Designates September 6 As “Opioid Safety Day”

News provided by

Aventine Co.

Aug 06, 2013, 03:00 ET

Montclair, NJ (PRWEB) August 06, 2013 -- PAINWeek, the National Conference on Pain for Frontline Practitioners, has designated Friday, September 6, as “Opioid Safety Day”.

The Day will feature courses that will better prepare attendees to utilize appropriate analgesics in multidisciplinary pain therapy. Specific topics to be covered include:

  • Opioids A-Z
  • Opioid Conversions
  • Opioid-Induced Hyperalgesia
  • Opioids inside the Institutional Setting: Is it a Safe Haven?
  • Opioids: Update on Abuse-Deterrent Technologies for Opioids
  • Medical Cannabinoids: Science, Practice, Policy, and Ethics
  • Patient-Centered Urine Drug Testing
  • Fundamentals of Pain and Addiction
  • Why Just Saying “No” to Opioids Isn’t Necessarily Good Medicine

Highlighting the proceedings will be a 90-minute session, “The Great Divide: the Debate on Long-Term Opioid Prescribing for Chronic Noncancer Pain”. The expert panel will offer an expansive discussion that addresses numerous perspectives in this ongoing debate. Panel member Charles E. Argoff, MD, CPE, Director of the Comprehensive Pain Center at Albany Medical Center, and also a PAINWeek faculty member, added, “For anyone to publicly state that there aren’t many patients with chronic pain who benefit from chronic long-term opioid therapy is disingenuous and inaccurate. At the same time, for anyone to say that all patients on chronic long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain do well is also disingenuous, inaccurate, and overlooks public health issues related to opioids. This debate will provide an opportunity for open dialogue regarding these issues.” Dr. Argoff will be joined by Jeffrey Fudin, BS, PharmD, FCCP, Nabarun Dasgupta, PhD, MPH, Stephen Ziegler, JD, PhD and program moderator, Daniel B. Carr, MD, FABPM.

In a research letter published February 20, 2013, in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on the continuing escalation of drug overdose deaths in the US over the past decade, and on the predominant role of opioid analgesics in that statistic. Specifically, in 2010, nearly 60 percent of the drug overdose deaths (22,134) involved prescription drugs. Opioid analgesics such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and especially, methadone were involved in about 3 of every 4 such incidents. In his call to the prescribing community, CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, stated, “Appropriate screening, identification, and clinical management by health care providers are essential parts of both behavioral health and chronic pain management.”

Concurrently, patient advocates and pain practitioners have voiced concern over the role of an increasingly stringent legal regulatory environment in limiting legitimate access to these medications where they are clinically indicated.

About PAINWeek
PAINWeek is the nation’s largest pain conference for frontline practitioners with an interest in pain management. Convening for its 7th year on September 4-7, 2013, in Las Vegas.

PAINWeek will again welcome over 1800 physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals for a comprehensive program of course offerings, satellite events, and exhibits. Over 100 hours of continuing medical education activities will be presented. To learn more and register for PAINWeek 2013, visit http://www.painweek.org.

Debra Weiner, Aventine Co., http://www.painweek.org, 973-233-4459, [email protected]