Alarm over death links with opioid painkillers

PRESCRIPTIONS for the powerful morphine-like drug oxycodone are continuing to increase despite a spike in the numbers of deaths.

PRESCRIPTIONS for the powerful morphine-like drug oxycodone are continuing to increase despite a spike in the numbers of deaths potentially linked to its use.

Experts told a meeting of Australian pain specialists yesterday there was an urgent need to tackle the problem, through measures such as tougher restrictions on the ability of GPs to prescribe drugs such as oxycodone.

Prescriptions for what is known colloquially to some as "hillbilly heroin" have gone through the roof since the drug was added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme about 10 years ago.

Pam Macintyre, director of the Acute Pain Service at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, told the meeting that a Victorian study published this year had found the number of deaths reported to the state coroner in which oxycodone was detected had soared 21-fold from four in 2000 to 97 in 2009.

Over the same period, the amount of oxycodone prescribed in Victoria had gone up from 7.5mg per head of population in 2000 to 67.5mg nine years later, according to the study published in the journal Injury Prevention.

Associate Professor Macintyre told the meeting experts from her hospital carried out a survey on the provision of oxycodone to patients after noticing a strong increase in people seeking treatment after being discharged with a script for or a supply of the drug.

"They were horrified to find that 7 per cent of all discharged prescriptions were for immediate-release oxycodone, and it was the most commonly prescribed drug at discharge," she told the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists' faculty of pain management meeting in Hong Kong.

Many patients were reportedly being given more oxycodone than they needed, with some "cheerfully being sent home with boxes of 20 to 40 tablets".

Professor Macintyre told The Weekend Australian it could not be proved that the increased deaths in the Victorian study had been caused by oxycodone. However, it was vital for patients and doctors to better understand the risks with opioid drugs, given their use was likely to rise further with the trend to discharge patients as soon as 24 hours after surgery.