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Cited by 393

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 57 of the 57 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Itching after epidural and spinal opiates

Ballantyne, Jane C., Loach, Alan B., Carr, Daniel B.·1988·Pain
DOI 10.1016/0304-3959(88)90085-1
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Abstract

When opiates are administered by the epidural and spinal routes, itching occurs as a side effect. We reviewed 52 reports in the literature of the use of epidural and spinal opiates to assess the incidence of itching and found an overall incidence of 8.5% in patients receiving epidural opiates, and 46% in patients receiving spinal opiates. The symptom is a recognised, though rare, side effect of systemically administered opiates, and in the case of systemic administration the itching is generalised. In the case of epidural and spinal administration, the itching may be generalised. But often a segmental distribution is demonstrable, centred on the level of injection, or the itching is localised to a particular area such as the nose and face. It is likely therefore, in the latter case, that there is an effect upon the spinal cord itself. Although occasionally spinal opiate-induced itching is extremely troublesome and lessens the value of spinal opiate pain relief, in the majority of cases, the itching is not severe and is treatable with naloxone. However, the frequent occurrence of the symptom and the likelihood of a spinal cord mechanism do provide valuable information about opioid actions, and benefit may be derived from better understanding the phenomenon. This paper states a hypothesis to explain spinal opiate-induced itch and explores the possible mechanisms of the effect.

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Metadata

Authors
Ballantyne, J. C., Loach, A. B., & Carr, D. B.
Venue
Pain
Publisher
Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Published
1988-05
Volume
33
Issue
2
Pages
149-160
ISSN
0304-3959 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/0304-3959(88)90085-1
OpenAlex
W2065323160
Cited by
393
References
57
FWCI
6.70
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Itching after epidural and spinal opiates. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/0304-3959(88)90085-1
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Ballantyne, J. C., Loach, A. B., & Carr, D. B. (1988). Itching after epidural and spinal opiates. Pain. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3959(88)90085-1

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.