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Expert: Advances in pain care overshadowed by opioid risks, evidence gaps
Summary
At the Montana Pain Initiative conference in Missoula, June Dahl, professor of pharmacology at the University of Wisconsin, summarized decades of progress in pain assessment and treatment while warning about opioid-related harms and limited evidence for long-term opioid therapy.
June Dahl, professor of pharmacology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, told attendees at the Montana Pain Initiative conference in Missoula that the U.S. has seen major advances in pain assessment and treatment but faces serious open questions about opioid safety and long-term effectiveness.
Dahl said pain is widespread and often undertreated, citing published estimates that place the economic burden of common pain conditions including headache, back pain and arthritis at about $61,000,000,000 a year. She also highlighted changing cancer survivorship, saying millions of Americans now live longer with cancer-related pain and that pain among cancer survivors is becoming a long-term, management problem rather than an exclusively end-of-life issue.
Why it matters: Dahl framed those trends as central to the work of the new Montana Pain Initiative.…
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