Intravenous morphine consumption in outpatients with cancer during their last week of life--an analysis based on patient-controlled analgesia data.

INTRODUCTION: Studies on opioid use in terminally ill cancer patients have shown a prefinal dose increase in the majority of patients. Mostly oral opioids were used. Due to the pharmacokinetic properties of opioids, it is rather difficult to get a reliable estimate of the true opioid need from those results. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Retrospectively, we analyzed opioid use during the last week of life of 30 consecutive outpatients with cancer on intravenous (i.v.) morphine patient-controlled analgesia (PCA). A dose increase (decrease) was defined as an increase (decrease) of the patient's individual daily dose by at least 30% with respect to their prior daily dose. We also analyzed circadian variations in morphine use. RESULTS: Thirty patients fulfilled the primary study inclusion criteria. Fulfilling the exclusion criteria, seven patients had to be excluded from analysis (n = 3, on PCA for less than 7 days; n = 4, PCA was finished before death). Twenty-three patients with a total of 161 treatment days were analyzed. The patients' median age was 57 years (range, 4 to 72). The median duration of intravenous morphine PCA was 19 days (range, 8 to 58). The median daily intravenous morphine dose during the last week of life was 96 to 115 mg, without significant change over time/from day to day (Friedman test). On 144/161 days (89.2%), morphine dose remained stable. On 9 treatment days (5.6%), the dose increased, and on 8 days (5.0%), it decreased. In three patients, only dose increases, and in four patients, only dose decreases were observed. In four patients, both dose increases and decreases were observed. Twelve patients showed no change in daily morphine dose. Opioid use lacked a diurnal pattern. CONCLUSION: During their end-of-life phase, cancer patients on i.v. morphine PCA showed a stable daily opioid need.

False alarm rates of three third-generation pulse oximeters in PACU, ICU and IABP patients.

The objective of this clinical study was to determine alarm rates--in particular the frequency of false positive alarms--of three third-generation pulse oximeters in the postanesthesia care unit (PACU), the intensive care unit (ICU), and in patients with an intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP): Nellcor Symphony N-3000, a Masimo IVY 2000, and Agilent Viridia CMS 2000. All alarms were classified into technical/physiological and false/correct. 235 consecutive ASA physical status I-IV patients after surgery were included into the study. In the PACU false positive alarms were rare: CMS n = 60, N-3000 n = 60, Masimo n = 87. Bland-Altman testing discovered only negligible differences of alarm rates and dropout times. Out of a total of 728 alarms 67.3% were classified as false positive in ICU-patients: 97 alarms by CMS, 176 by N-3000 and 218 by Masimo SET. If IABP was present, CMS indicated a significant smaller number of false positive alarms (n = 35, 7.2%) when compared to Masimo SET (n = 188, 38.9%) and N-3000 (n = 229, 47.4%), consecutively the majority of false positive alarms (76.2%) can be rated as a result of the interference of IABP. Unless IABP (and to a considerably smaller extent cardiac arrhythmia) is present the pulse oximeters do not differ significantly regarding sensitivity and specificity.