Proglumide as a morphine adjunct in cancer pain supervision.

Proglumide, a cholecystokinin (CCK) antagonist, has been proven to have agonist effects at extremely low doasage amounts on both endogenous in addition to exogenous opioid systems.

To be able to determine the effectiveness in addition to the side effects of proglumide as an opioid agonist, a double-blind crossover study was conducted inside 60 patients with malignancy pain who were treated along with opioid analgesics. Forty-three patients completed both treatment hands: (a) full analgesic medication dosage plus placebo (the person's usual analgesic dose, individualized to drug dose and route) and (b) one-half analgesic dose plus 55 mg of proglumide. An analysis of eight pain descriptors was performed in order to determine whether or not necessarily these treatments were related with a difference inside patients' pain perception.

The degree of patient anxiety differed involving the two arms, but was inconsistent over time. Right now there were no unwanted effects discovered with proglumide, as determined by clinical monitoring in addition to patient questionnaire. No variations in pain perception were recognized between the study arms. The latter finding is steady with an augmentation associated with morphine analgesia, but without having additional controls, the equivalency of the two biceps and triceps cannot be determined together with certainty. Nonetheless, this examine suggests that proglumide may have use as a good opioid adjunct in patients with cancer pain.