Oxycodone (OxyNorm®)

Following a full submission.

Oxycodone (Oxynorm?) injection is accepted for restricted use within NHS Scotland only for the treatment of moderate to severe pain in patients with cancer.

Use of this drug should be restricted to patients who have difficulty in tolerating morphine or diamorphine therapy. Limited data indicate that it provides analgesia similar to parenteral morphine at similar doses. However, there are no comparative data with diamorphine, the opioid recommended by Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) for patients with cancer who require parenteral opioids. Oxycodone is more expensive than diamorphine and the economic case for this product replacing the other products has not been clearly demonstrated.

Other indications for this medicine, treatment of moderate to severe post-operative pain and severe pain requiring the use of strong opioid, have yet to be considered by the Scottish Medicines Consortium. Advice on these indications will be made after the relevant submissions have been made by the licence holder.