Opioids for breathlessness: psychological and neural factors influencing response variability

Chronic breathlessness is a multidimensional and aversive symptom, which is often poorly explained by underlying pathophysiology [1]. For many sufferers, breathlessness is refractory to maximal medical therapies that target disease processes [2]. However, opioids are thought to be a possible therapeutic avenue to treat symptomology independently of disease [3]. Importantly, research in chronic pain has demonstrated that qualities such as anxiety and depression (collectively termed negative affect here) can both exacerbate symptoms [4] and reduce opioid efficacy [5, 6]. Therefore, it may be pertinent to consider such behavioural factors when contemplating the use of opioids for breathlessness.

Source: European Respiratory Journal - September 18, 2019 Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Abdallah, S. J., Faull, O. K., Wanigasekera, V., Finnegan, S. L., Jensen, D., Pattinson, K. T. S. Tags: Original Articles: Research letters Source Type: research