Novel technology for cancer pain

Cancer patients fraught with flare-ups of pain, or breakthrough pain, may soon receive some assistance in the form of a new easy-to-use oral drug delivery system developed by BioDelivery Sciences designed to quickly deliver pain medication.

Cancer patients frequently experience two types of pain: persistent and breakthrough. Persistent cancer pain is characterized as continuous for long periods of time, and often most of the day. It is treated by daily or regular doses of pain medication. Breakthrough pain is a brief and often severe shooting of pain that "breaks through" a patient's continuous medication for persistent pain.

One breakthrough pain medication is the opiate fentanyl. Fentanyl is a potent opioid analgesic (painkiller) first developed in the 1950s, and long in use by the medical community for controlling various types of pain. The next generation product able to quickly deliver fentanyl for the treatment of cancer breakthrough pain is a patient-friendly, small oral adhesive disc called BEMA Fentanyl, which has recently completed Phase III trials by BioDelivery. The results of the Phase III pivotal efficacy clinical trial in cancer patients with breakthrough pain announced earlier this year with BEMA Fentanyl are very encouraging, says the company.