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Oxycodone for cancer-related pain.

Mia Schmidt-Hansen¹, Michael I Bennett, Stephanie Arnold

¹National Guideline Alliance, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, 27 Sussex Pl, Regent's Park, London, UK, NW1 4RG.

The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

|August 23, 2017

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Area of Science:

Oncology
Pain Management
Pharmacology

Background:

Cancer pain often requires strong opioids like oxycodone and morphine.
These opioids may not be effective or well-tolerated by all patients.
This review assesses oxycodone's efficacy and tolerability for cancer pain.

Purpose of the Study:

To evaluate oxycodone's effectiveness and tolerability compared to other analgesics for adult cancer pain.
To update previous Cochrane review findings on oxycodone for cancer-related pain.

Main Methods:

Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
Included studies compared oxycodone (any formulation/route) with placebo or active drugs.
Data on pain intensity, adverse events, quality of life, and participant preference were analyzed.

Main Results:

Controlled-release (CR) oxycodone and immediate-release (IR) oxycodone showed similar pain relief and adverse events.
CR oxycodone and CR morphine demonstrated comparable pain relief and adverse events, with very low-quality evidence.
Hallucinations were less frequent with CR oxycodone than CR morphine, though evidence quality was very low.

Conclusions:

Oxycodone provides similar pain relief and overall adverse events compared to other strong opioids like morphine.
While CR morphine showed a slight, non-persistent benefit in pain relief, oxycodone had fewer hallucinations (low-quality evidence).
Oxycodone and morphine are both appropriate first-line oral opioids for managing adult cancer pain.