Dr. Kurt Kroenke discusses findings of the CAMEO trial and the promising evidence-based options doctors can use for patients who are on opiates without neglecting their chronic pain.
Transcript:
A lot of the things that happened after the CDC (recommendations) came out was, “Let’s just get rid of their opiates” because the whole issue was on the opiate crisis, and the focus was, “What do we do about their pain?” So I think this provides a couple good options for physicians who may have people on chronic opiates and before just suddenly tapering or stopping it, one option is to optimize other pain medicines and another is to refer them for cognitive behavioral therapy. There actually was some reduction in opiate use in the medication arm. We would like to have people on opiates — if we can — reduce the amount they’re on and some people get them off, but we probably simultaneously should be paying attention to the reason they’re on the opiates, which is, their chronic pain.
