Pain relief from a 1 mg dose did not vary by patient body weight.
Because hydromorphone is distributed widely into multiple tissues, weight-based dosing would seem to be the safest and most effective strategy when treating acute pain. Investigators at a single urban emergency department tested this theory by giving adults of varying weight the same dose and assessing pain relief.
They conducted a prospective, observational study involving 163 adults who required intravenous opioids for initial treatment of acute pain. All patients — ranging in weight from 45 kg to 157 kg — received the same dose of hydromorphone (1 mg). Improvement was measured on a numeric pain rating scale.
No correlation was observed between weight and change in pain at 30 minutes (the primary outcome). Only one patient (weight, 64 kg) h…
Reviewing Author
DisclosuresConsultant/Advisory BoardPortola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Speaker’s BureauPeerView Institute for Medical Education
Grant/Research SupportAgency for Healthcare Research and Quality; CDC; NIH–National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; NIH–National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID); NIH–NIAID–Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group; Merck; Pfizer; Boehringer-Ingelheim; Shire; Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Novartis; bioMérieux; Siemens; Rapid Pathogen Screening; Magnolia; Stago; Innovative Biosensors; Molecular Detection, Inc.; Dyax Corp.; Trius Pharmaceuticals
DisclosuresConsultant/Advisory BoardPortola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Speaker’s BureauPeerView Institute for Medical Education
Grant/Research SupportAgency for Healthcare Research and Quality; CDC; NIH–National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; NIH–National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID); NIH–NIAID–Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group; Merck; Pfizer; Boehringer-Ingelheim; Shire; Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Novartis; bioMérieux; Siemens; Rapid Pathogen Screening; Magnolia; Stago; Innovative Biosensors; Molecular Detection, Inc.; Dyax Corp.; Trius Pharmaceuticals