Management of acute pain in methadone maintenance therapy in-patients.

Methadone maintained treatment (MMT) patients may be given less opioid analgesia for acute pain than the general patient, due to requests for analgesia being misinterpreted as craving for drugs. Pain studies have showed that MMT patients have hyperalgesic responses and that cross-tolerance to opioids may be present, suggesting that they may need more analgesia than the non-MMT patient. This study compares the pain management of MMT patients and controls during an acute hospital stay.