Does Morphine Help Patients With Breathing Problems?

Is morphine recommended for breathlessness? morphine does not reduce the worst breathing problems caused due to damage the lungs and airways.

The healthcare professionals treat patients with opioids such as morphine to relieve symptoms, but there has been a lack of evidence as to whether this helps with severe chronic breathlessness.

A randomized Phase 3 study conducted by Swedish and Australian researchers now finds that morphine does not reduce worst breathlessness. The study is published in JAMA.

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COPD includes respiratory tract disorders that cause obstruction to airflow. These are chronic bronchitis, emphysema and small airway disease.

‘Morphine is an opiate drug used to treat serious pain that can also be given to ease the feeling of shortness of breath.’

Long-term shortness of breath is a common cause of ongoing suffering that often occurs with advanced serious illness and at the end of life. COPD can cause breathlessness by damaging the lungs and airways and for seriously ill people with severe long-term breathlessness, physical activity is often a challenge.

To solve this challenge, researchers included 156 patients, each for three weeks, with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who suffered from severe long-term breathlessness.

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In the first week, the participants were randomized into three groups, two to regular low doses of once-daily morphine (8 milligrams daily or 16 milligrams daily), and a third control group that received a placebo.

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During the subsequent two weeks, participants were randomized to receive either an additional 8 milligrams of morphine or a placebo, in addition to the previous treatment.

This was done to investigate the efficacy of the treatment and the risk of side effects resulting from an increased dose of morphine. The treatment was 鬴ouble-blind�, which means the participants and those who treated them didn㦙 know what treatment each group was receiving.

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Given the prevalence of long-term breathlessness across the world, we must find ways that safely and predictably reduce the suffering that this causes people, often for years.

Later, they compared the groups to see how they rated their experience of shortness of breath. With the help of motion sensors, also measured the participants� physical activity during the study.

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Some probably expected that the study would show that regular, low-dose morphine may allow people to be more physically active. Unfortunately, across all participants, we did not see this. We didn㦙 see any improvements in terms of the worst breathlessness that participants experienced.

The use of regular low-dose morphine for severe long-term breathlessness should not be widely used in healthcare as a treatment for groups that experience chronic, activity-limiting shortness of breath.

The next step will be to investigate in greater detail whether certain groups respond better to morphine, as well as which ones are at a higher risk of experiencing side effects.

Source-Eurekalert