Pharmacological quest for gold: pursuing safer opioid analgesia

Abstract

To this day, opioid analgesics continue to be a cornerstone in the management of acute and chronic pain due to their unparalleled potency. Despite their significant drawbacks, ranging from manageable disadvantages like nausea to severe, potentially fatal side effects such as respiratory depression, drugs targeting our body’s opioid system remain extensively prescribed in clinical practice. This thesis will evaluate several pharmacological strategies aimed at improving the benefit-to-harm ratio of drugs involving the opioid system.