Patients with non-cancer back or neck pain who use vs do not use tobacco may be more likely to be concurrently prescribed opioid analgesics with muscle relaxants and/or benzodiazepines.
Alprazolam was found to be the most commonly misused benzodiazepine.
Patients with chronic pain and a history of physical and sexual abuse were found to be more likely to concurrently use benzodiazepine and opioids.
Five-fold increased risk of opioid-related overdose during first 90 days of concurrent use
Legislation that requires prescribers to check Ohio’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program was found to lead to a reduction in the quantity of opioids and benzodiazepines dispensed.
New opioid prescriptions for U.S. adults using benzodiazepines stopped increasing in 2010, although the likelihood of receiving a prescription is still elevated versus the general population.
Hydrolysis of urine before benzodiazepine immunoassay screening and optimization of the immunoassay absorbance cutoff were found to improve the rate of false-negative screening.
A review of several published studies showed that the evidence did not support dose limitations or arbitrary caps of buprenorphine or methadone as a strategy to address benzodiazepine or other CNS depressant use in MAT-treated patients.
Continuous infusions of midazolam plus morphine do not provide additional pain relief compared with intermittent dosing of those drugs, and may increase hospital length of stay among pediatric patients who have undergone cardiac surgery.
The FDA has recently issued a report advising against the use of buprenorphine and methadone medications in patients taking benzodiazepines and/or other central nervous system depressants.
