Morphine Pump Can Aid Cancer Patients - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Oct, 1999

Anesthesiologists are constantly looking for new ways to help cancer patients who suffer from what is referred to as "breakthrough pain," which occurs in sudden, unpredictable, excruciating episodes. They may have found an answer in a medication delivery system that is surgically implanted and patient-controlled. "The system lets patients self-administer a fixed, safe dose of morphine by pressing a small control pad surgically implanted under the skin near the ribs," explains Richard L. Rauck, a researcher at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C. The control pad is about the size of a standard business card and is three-quarters of an inch thick. The device operates a pump that delivers morphine via a catheter directly to the area immediately surrounding the spine, called the intrathecal space. Bathing this area with morphine effectively blocks pain signals to the brain.

Medication is stored in a small reservoir placed under the skin near the abdomen that can be refilled each month by the patient's anesthesiologist. To prevent overdosing, the pump is designed not to refill itself until 90 minutes after the patient self-administers a dose.

"Intrathecal infusion devices have been used for more than a decade, but there were significant drawbacks in patient control of the doses and flexibility," Rauck points out. "For example, surgically implanted devices deliver a continuous infusion of medication, depriving patients of the ability to control their own pain relief. The only available types of patient-controlled systems are external pumps, and they greatly limit patient mobility. This new system offers both control and flexibility, and could cost half that of alternative systems."