Patient Safety Tip of the Week
July 24, 2012
FDA and Extended-Release/Long-Acting Opioids
In our June 28, 2011
Patient Safety Tip of the Week “Long-Acting
and Extended-Release Opioid Dangers” we discussed potential dangers of a
number of long-acting or extended-release opioids, including fentanyl patches.
Then in our September 13, 2011 Patient Safety Tip of the Week “Do
You Use Fentanyl Transdermal Patches Safely?” we provided numerous
recommendations to improve the safety of fentanyl patches. We stressed the
importance of appropriate disposal of such patches because of potential dangers
to children and pets.
Now, as one piece of
a multi-pronged approach by the government to reduce misuse, abuse and
addiction with opioids, the FDA has recently announced a new REMS (Risk
Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy)
program for extended-release and long-acting opioids (FDA
2012a). The FDA has mandated that
the manufacturers of these agents fund educational programs for providers who
prescribe these drugs. The educational programs, however, must be based on a
“blueprint” established by the FDA. That blueprint also includes educational
materials for patients, including not only safe and appropriate use of these
agents but also proper disposal techniques (see our May 2012 What’s New in the
Patient Safety World column“Another
Fentanyl Patch Warning from FDA”).
The materials in the
FDA “blueprint” are actually very good. They educate providers and prescribers
on abuse potential, tools for screening for addiction, understanding the
difference between “opioid-naïve” and “opioid-tolerant” patients, acute vs.
chronic pain, titration strategies, potency differences between various
products, establishing goals and monitoring effects, and how to counsel
patients on use and disposal of opioid products. The document is over 40 pages
long but reading it is well worth your while.
These drugs are
intended for use in management of chronic pain and in patients who are
opioid-tolerant. Yet more and more we are seeing them being used
(inappropriately) in patients with acute pain and those who are opioid-naïve.
We also see them being prescribed in patients at high risk for respiratory
depression, such as those with COPD or sleep apnea. The advice here is
important not just to those providers who prescribe these agents but is
relevant for anyone who works in an emergency department or hospital or other
healthcare facility. We’ve seen cases where application of a new transdermal
patch without removal of the old one leads to unintentional overdoses and cases
where patients intentionally overdosed on long-acting preparations and did not
develop respiratory depression until almost 24 hours later. So a thorough
understanding of multiple aspects of these agents and preparations is critical.
The FDA “blueprint”
does a good job of discussing abuse/addiction potential and provides tables for
each drug preparation that give dosing information, equipotency information
relative to morphine, specific instructions and special warnings specific to
each drug. It discusses nuances such as which drugs are metabolized via the
various cytochrome systems that may lead to drug-drug interactions and which
may predispose to the long-QT interval syndrome (torsades de pointes) and which
may predispose to the serotonin syndrome or other relatively rare conditions.
The “blueprint” also
stresses the importance of educating not only patients who will be using these
agents but also their caregivers and families. It is extremely important that
the latter understand safe and secure storage and disposal of such agents to
reduce the risk that children or pets may inadvertently be exposed to these
dangerous agents.
The FDA also just
announced it will be forcing companies to remove unapproved oxycodone products
from the market (FDA
2012b). Many of these products came onto the market prior to certain FDA
regulatory requirements. Currently, the law requires that new drugs be shown to
be safe, effective, adequately labeled, and of appropriate manufacturing
quality prior to being approved by FDA for marketing in the United States. In
an attempt to address this issue, the FDA’s Unapproved Drugs Initiative, which
began in 2006, has been systematically targeting marketed unapproved drugs and
removing them from the market.
There are
FDA-approved versions of these drug products on the market that contain the
same active ingredient, strength(s), and dosage forms as the unapproved
products. All of the manufacturers of the approved versions of these products
have given FDA assurances that they can adequately supply the market.
And talk about good
timing! There was just a great article in the New England Journal of Medicine (Boyer 2012) on
management of opioid analgesic overdoses. It highlights the pathophysiology,
clinical manifestations, management, and special considerations. It points out
that tolerance to the respiratory depression from opioids develops more slowly
than tolerance to the analgesic effects. This narrows the therapeutic window
and, paradoxically, patients with long-standing opioid therapy may be at
greater risk for respiratory depression. It highlights, as we have in several
columns, that the effect of the reversal agent naloxone may wear off long
before the effect of the opioid wears off, raising the danger of recurrence of
respiratory depression. Other clinical pearls are the necessity to totally
unclothe the patient so a thorough search for fentanyl patches can be done and
to always consider the possibility of coexisting acetaminophen overdose since
so many opioid preparations are mixtures of acetaminophen plus the opioid. Good
article, great timing!
And we think you’ll
learn a lot from our prior articles pertaining to long-acting and/or extended
release preparations of opioids:
June 28, 2011 “Long-Acting
and Extended-Release Opioid Dangers”
September 13,
2011 “Do
You Use Fentanyl Transdermal Patches Safely?”
May 2012 “Another
Fentanyl Patch Warning from FDA”
References:
FDA. Extended-Release (ER) And Long-Acting (LA) Opioid Analgesics Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS). July 9, 2012
FDA. FDA prompts companies to remove certain unapproved oxycodone products from market. July 5, 2012
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm310641.htm
Boyer E. Management of Opioid Analgesic Overdose. N Engl J Med 2012; 367: 146-155
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1202561
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