Background: Long-term opioid therapy for chronic noncancer pain is becoming increasingly
common in community practice. Concomitant with this change in practice, rates of fatal …

Background Chronic opioid therapy for chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) is increasingly
common in community practice. Concomitant with this practice change, rates of fatal opioid …

Importance From January 1, 2003, through December 31, 2010, drug overdose deaths in
Tennessee increased from 422 to 1059 per year. More of these deaths involved prescription …

Background Opioids are widely prescribed for chronic nonmalignant pain, often at doses
exceeding those recommended in clinical practice guidelines. However, the risk-benefit ratio …

Objectives This paper describes characteristics of opioid use episodes for noncancer pain
and defines thresholds for de facto long-term opioid therapy. Methods CONSORT …

Background: Nonfatal opioid overdose is an opportunity to identify and treat substance use
disorders, but treatment patterns after the overdose are unknown. Objective: To determine …

In the past 20 years, primary care physicians have greatly increased prescribing of long-term
opioid therapy. However, the rise in opioid prescribing has outpaced the evidence regarding …

Importance The unprecedented increase in unintentional overdose events that has occurred
in tandem with escalating sales of prescription opioids over the past 2 decades has raised …

Current research on the risk of opioid analgesics with drug overdose does not account for
the total morphine equivalent dose (MED) of opioids filled by a patient. In this study, time …

Context The rate of prescription opioid–related overdose death increased substantially in
the United States over the past decade. Patterns of opioid prescribing may be related to risk …