Jeff Gudin, MD: The Future of Pain Management Care

There is a silver lining in the opioid epidemic.

New therapies, from analgesics to less-addictive strains of medicines made with opioid-like molecules, are on the horizon. Jeffrey Gudin, MD, director of Pain Management and Palliative Care at the Englewood Hospital & Medical Center in Englewood, NJ, told MD Magazine® he has versed himself well on the future of pain management care, and he's optimistic for what it holds.

"It's a relatively exciting time in the world of pain management, at least in reading the journals and knowing what we have on the horizon," Gudin said.

MD Mag: What is the state of potentially new therapies for pain management?

Jeff Gudin, MD: It's a relatively exciting time in the world of pain management, at least in reading the journals and knowing what we have on the horizon. There are new classes of medicines—brand new classes—which will help alleviate the stress surrounding opioids.

There's also opioid-like molecules that are in development that have less or no addiction risk potential, less respiratory depression, or no respiratory depression issues. So we're not going to see abuse-addiction diversion, and most importantly, overdose-related deaths. There's been a resurgence of topical analgesics—gels and creams, and even new generations of spray-on analgesics—so that patients can avoid going to the stronger opioid-like medicines and have different choices for analgesics.

I think that most of us who are healthcare providers will be pleased to see what the future holds from an analgesics perspective.