Early doses of morphine may prevent stress disorder
Trauma less likely, new study says
LOS ANGELES – Early administration of morphine to military personnel wounded on the front lines during Operation Iraqi Freedom appears to have done more than relieve excruciating pain. Scientists believe it also prevented hundreds of cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, the debilitating condition that plagues 15 percent of those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That conclusion is based on findings published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. They suggest that a simple treatment can stop a horrifying event from escalating into a chronic, incapacitating illness.
Small clinical trials and observational studies have hinted that opiates and other medications could disrupt the way the brain encodes traumatic memories, thus preventing the incidents from being recorded with too much intensity. The new findings – troops who received morphine within a few hours of their injuries were about 50 percent less likely to develop PTSD than those who didn’t get the powerful pain-killer – are a strong endorsement of that theory.
The results underscore the potential for a pre-emptive treatment, not just for soldiers, but for victims of wars, natural disasters, physical abuse, violent crimes such as rape, and traumatic accidents.
PTSD is a relatively common disorder in which stress seems to cause normal memory systems to go into overdrive. It can cause vivid flashbacks, sleeping difficulties, and problems with personal relationships.
In the latest study, a team from the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego considered the treatment histories of 696 military personnel who were injured in Iraq from 2004 to 2006 and cared for at medical treatment facilities in the field. A total of 243 patients went on to develop PTSD. Among that group, 60 percent were treated with morphine to alleviate the pain of their injuries. Of the 453 people who did not get PTSD, 76 percent received morphine.
Overall, the patients who received morphine were about half as likely to develop PTSD compared to those who did not.