Opioids: Their Role in Pain Medicine, and How to Find the Path Between Under-supply and Over-consumption
All congress delegates are welcome to register for this special session and to submit questions and comments for the panel discussion before September 15. Your questions will be addressed by the speakers during the session at the World Congress on Pain.
Moderator:
Rolf-Detlef Treede, President of IASP
Speakers:
Jane Ballantyne (Pain specialist, USA)
Sushma Bhatnagar (Palliative care specialist, India)
Penelope Briscoe (pain specialist, Australia)
Thomas Tölle (Neurologist, Germany)
Douglas Gourlay (Addiction specialist, Canada),
In its special session on opioids, IASP will focus on the prescribing side of the disparities, with emphasis on the appropriate role for opioids in the treatment of pain. Opioids and pain medicine have been closely linked throughout the history of medicine, where opioids have been regarded the strongest means to achieve pain relief. But opioids and addiction have an equally long history, with varying attitudes of societal acceptance or prosecution towards recreational use of opioids. Global consumption of opioids has skyrocketed in recent decades highlighting the disparity between over availability fueling substance use disorders and overdose deaths in high income countries, and restricted availability resulting in avoidable pain and suffering in low and middle income countries. International bodies have focused their attention on the supply side of these disparities.
Speakers and topics of this session during the 16th World Congress on Pain are:
Ballantyne: Overprescription and diversion of opioids in the U.S.A. and recent initiatives
Bhatnagar: Improved opioid supply management in India while learning from other countries
Briscoe: How Australia prevented an opioid epidemic
Tölle: Lessons from guidelines for non-cancer pain in Germany
Gourlay: Lessons from addiction medicine in Canada
These presentations will be followed by a panel discussion on how to achieve a balanced approach from the medical profession towards the rational use of opioids.