New Analgesic Protocol for Acute Pain Management in Cancer Patients
Summary
Cancer-related pain is one of the most frequent and relevant symptoms experienced by cancer patients, significantly affecting their quality of life. Clinical protocols, both in Chile and internationally, recommend using an analgesic cocktail consisting of strong opioids combined with co-adjuvants such as paracetamol, as an initial analgesic strategy.
This is based on the fact that the use of combined analgesics could have a better analgesic effect, would allow for using lower doses of opioids and would also prevent the adverse effects of opioids. However, current evidence on the actual benefit of paracetamol’s analgesic effect for pain management (moderate to severe) in patients using strong opioids is inconclusive.
The research team is conducting studies to evaluate the analgesic effect of paracetamol and to update clinical protocols for managing acute pain in cancer patients. Not only does this have an economic impact on the public and private health system, but it also improves patient well-being.
Advantages
- Improves patient well-being by providing more appropriate pain management
- Optimizes analgesic protocols for better resource management
Development Status
TRL-2
Opportunity
Licensing by public and private health care centers
Research Team
School of Medicine, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
- Ofelia Leiva
- Pedro Pérez Cruz
- Luz Maria Letelier Saavedra
- Luis Rojas
- Paola Viviani Garcia Garcia