Proof opiates are useful for chronic back pain 'lacking'

Conclusion This systematic review found no evidence that opioids provide a meaningful effect on chronic non-specific lower back pain. Opioids are often used as a last resort for people who have not responded to other painkillers. But these results found opioids gave only half the size of the effect that would be needed to make a real difference – about a 10-point score difference, rather than 20. On the whole, the body of evidence was high quality. A large number of trials where identified, and most were multi-centre trials with good sample sizes carried out in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. This means the findings should be representative of people with this condition in the UK. Most of the evidence compared the effect of opioids with placebo only, rather than any other active intervention. And 17 of the studies were funded by the pharmaceutical industry, giving uncertain potential for publication bias. However, in these cases, if anything, you would expect to see an overly favourable effect of opioids, which is not the case.   The extremely high dropout rate also cannot go unnoticed – 50% or greater in many studies. This may have contributed to the lack of effect seen, but also demonstrates the difficulty there is tolerating these strong painkillers. Many people experience debilitating side effects when taking them, such as nausea, vomiting and constipation.   Chronic non-specific lower back pain is an extremely common cause of disability in the UK. ...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medication Medical practice Neurology Source Type: news