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Published on: April 6, 2017
Nebulized morphine for relief of dyspnea due to chronic lung disease
Sherrill J Brown1, Samantha F Eichner, Jennifer R Jones
1College of Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences, Skaggs School of Pharmacy, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812-1522, USA. sherrill.brown@umontana.edu
Objective:
To evaluate the efficacy and safety of nebulized morphine for the management of dyspnea in chronic pulmonary diseases.
Data Sources:
MEDLINE (1966-May 2004), EMBASE (1980-May 2004), and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (1970-May 2004) searches were performed. Key search terms included morphine, dyspnea, and inhalation.
Data Synthesis:
Nine studies have evaluated the efficacy of nebulized morphine in relieving dyspnea. Three trials had positive results, but the rest failed to show improvement after treatment with doses ranging from 1 to 40 mg nebulized morphine. The small number of subjects, variety of disease states, and different outcome measures limit interpretation of the studies.
Conclusions:
Results from several small studies do not support the use of nebulized morphine for treatment of dyspnea; however, several positive case reports have been published.
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