Paliatívna medicína a liečba bolesti 3/2009
Inhalation of morphine for cancer dyspnea – overview of literature and personal experience
Morphine is a key drug used in palliative setting when causally therapy of cancer dyspnea has been exhausted. Use of nebulized morphine seems to be promising. Inhalation of morphine is non-invasive, may alleviate dyspnea, and there are almost none adverse events in a few published retrospective or prospective clinical studies. Clear beneficial effect was observed in two of eleven dyspneic patients treated in our department with ten mg of nebulized morphine due to progressive lung cancer.
Keywords: cancer, dyspnea, morphine, inhalation.
