1. Oxycodone has a distinctly different pharmacology from morphine
- Author
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Maree T. Smith, F. B. Ross, K. Saini, and Carsten K. Nielsen
- Subjects
Naloxonazine ,business.industry ,medicine.drug_class ,Pain relief ,Pharmacology ,Rat brain ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine ,chemistry ,Opioid Agonist ,Morphine ,medicine ,business ,Oxycodone ,Acute pain ,Opioid antagonist ,medicine.drug - Abstract
Oxycodone is a potent opioid agonist that has been in clinical use for many decades. However, it has only recently been appreciated that oxycodone has a distinctly different pharmacology from that of morphine. Importantly, when administered directly into the lateral ventricle of the rat brain, oxycodone produces dose-dependent, naloxone-reversible pain relief in an acute pain model, indicating that oxycodone itself has intrinsic anti-nociceptive effects (Leow & Smith, 1994). However, oxycodone's intrinsic pain-relieving effects are not attenuated by naloxonazine (-selective opioid antagonist) in a dose that completely blocks the anti-nociceptive effects of an equi-analgesic dose of morphine. Furthermore, the anti-nociceptive effects of intracerebroventricular (icv) oxycodone are completely attenuated by nor-binaltorphimine (-selective opioid antagonist) in a dose that has no significant effect on the levels of anti-nociception evoked by an equi-effective dose of morphine (Ross & Smith, 1997).
- Published
- 2001