These medication errors have occurred in health care facilities at least once. They will happen again-perhaps where you work. Through education and alertness of personnel and procedural safeguards, they can be avoided. You should consider publishing accounts of errors in your newsletters and/or presenting them at your inservice training programs. Your assistance is required to continue this feature. The reports described here were received through the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) Medication Errors Reporting Program. Any reports published by ISMP will be anonymous. Comments are also invited; the writers' names will be published if desired. ISMP may be contacted at the address shown below. Errors, close calls, or hazardous conditions may be reported directly to ISMP through the ISMP Web site (www.ismp.org), by calling 800-FAIL-SAFE, or via e-mail at ismpinfo@ismp.org. ISMP guarantees the confidentiality and security of the information received and respects reporters' wishes as to the level of detail included in publications.

Oral normal-release morphine has long been considered the gold-standard treatment for cancer breakthrough pain. However, its relatively long time to analgesic onset, delay in maximal analgesic effect and prolonged duration of action make it unsuitable for the management of breakthrough pain episodes. These limitations led to the development of an oral transmucosal formulation of the fast-acting opioid fentanyl (oral transmucosal fentanyl citrate [OTFC] lozenge on a plastic handle; Actiq®), which has been shown to produce more rapid and effective pain relief than oral morphine. However, the formulation itself has some limitations. Consequently, investigators have continued to develop other, newer generation, transmucosal formulations of fentanyl to further improve the management of breakthrough pain. Recently, five such compounds (Effentora®/Fentora®, Abstral®, Instanyl®, Breakyl®/OnsolisTM and PecFent®) have been concurrently approved in Europe and/or the US, and have documented efficacy in quickly relieving breakthrough pain episodes. All of the available pivotal efficacy trials of these agents are randomized, double-blind comparisons with placebo. There are no head-to-head trials comparing any of the newer transmucosal formulations with each other. Only one non-pivotal study of intranasal fentanyl spray used a transmucosal preparation as an active comparator. However, that comparator was OTFC, not one of the newer transmucosal products. Close examination of the existing trials assessing these newer transmucosal preparations reveals significant variation in many study parameters, such as patient selection criteria, severity of breakthrough pain episodes, proportions of patients with a neuropathic pain component, titration protocols, choice of the primary endpoints, protocols for repeat dosing and rescue medication, the separation of treated episodes and the extent of the placebo response, all of which may have affected efficacy results. It is therefore difficult to evaluate the relative efficacies of these treatments on the basis of the available trials. Furthermore, given the differences in design between studies, the value of any potential meta-analyses including these trials would likely be limited. Blinded head-to-head comparisons of new transmucosal fentanyl preparations would be the only way to conclusively determine comparative effectiveness, but given the impracticalities of conducting such studies, these are unlikely.

Factors that influenced the choice of dose of oral transmucosal fentanyl at the time of burns dressing change were investigated in a prospective study. After Ethics committee approval, data was analysed from 29 consecutive patients who had been recruited and consented for a study of pain associated with burns dressings. Patients had completed an 11-point verbal pain intensity score (VRS) prior to and after the dressing change. Analgesic use during for this period was documented. Doses of 600 to 1200 mcg of transmucosal fentanyl (Actiq) were given based on individual assessment. The pre-dressing VRS (median [range]) in the 15 patients who received 600 mcg was 8 [3-10] and was higher than the VRS of 6 [2-9] in the 800-1200 mcg group. The time since the burn was longer in the low dose group at 7 [1-22] days compared with 5 [0-50] days in the higher dose group. In addition 73% of the low dose group was prescribed opioids regularly prior to the dressing compared with 57% of the high dose group. The choice of a lower transmucosal fentanyl dose was based on prior use of opioids and the age of the burn rather than on the patient's pain intensity.