Abstract
The annual report about the prescription pattern of narcotic analgesia preparations in Akita University Hospital indicated that the total amount of morphine increased in an exponential way during the past decade and these finding also closely paralleled the increment ratio compared with the statistical data from the official publication in Japan. In order to understand the dosage and dosage form of morphine, and to study the clinical outlook for the highly increase in morphine therapy against various types of painful symptoms, we analyzed not only the utilization and prescription pattern of each preparation, but also the diagnostic criteria in patients who received morphine over the past two years.
Our results showed that 99.2% of amounts was given to 362 cancer patients that were composed of 87.5% of all patients and a few amount was prescribed to 137 patients who had been hospitalized due to acute circulatory episodes, congenital defects, and so on as a parenteral route. Metastasis or another types of carcinoma were found in 64.6%(234) of the cancer patients, and these multiple complications may be associated with the much higher doses and the changes in the dosage regimen among the different preparations. Although a large amount of morphine was given to a few patients with severe pain due to carcinoma of otorhinolaryngiological locus, the incidence of esophageal cancer was identified to be the most frequent type among the patients studied for a two years period.
It may be important to promote the appropriate administration of each morphine preparation and to support the continuous management for cancer patients according to the clinical or pathophysiological point of view due to the increased consumption of morphine.
