Reliability of morphine and pentazocine analgesia in experimental pain models

Abstract

Experimental models of pain have been used to detect the capacity of analgesics to reduce pain. Opioid analgesics have been shown to reduce experimental pain sensitivity across multiple stimulus modalities. However, one assumption of clinical and experimental pain testing of analgesic is that the analgesic response is stable and will be comparable across repeated administration. Additionally, a number of analytic methods could be used to determine the ability of a drug to reduce pain, but is unclear if one is a superior analgesic index.