Safe perioperative opioid taper in cancer patients needs meticulous multimodal management

Abstract

Opioid therapy plays a vital role in chronic pain management of advanced cancer patients. Some patients require discontinuation of opioids when an intervention appropriately controls the pain. Safe discontinuation of opioids poses a challenge among lack of evidence-based standardized taper protocol. We report a patient with a soft tissue sarcoma in whom opioid was tapered in the background of acute postoperative pain.

Keywords

• Cancer pain
• multimodal
• opioids
• palliation
• safe discontinuation
• taper