Purpose: The simple conversion ratio of 1：1：1/50 between oxycodone injection (OXJ), morphine injection and fentanyl injection is used at Saga－Ken Medical Centre Koseikan. However, there are no studies on the validity of the simple conversion ratio. Methods: A total of 18 patients with opioid switching to OXJ using the simple conversion ratio were reviewed in this investigation. We surveyed the change in the numeric rating scale (NRS) and adverse effects before and after opioid switching. Result: The average period needed to reach a stable dose of OXJ was 0.6 days. The reasons of opioid switching to OXJ were the uncontrolled cancer pain in 11 patients, the impossibility of oral administration in 6 patients, the drowsiness in 1 patient. The average NRS decreased from 3.3 to 1.1 in 11 patients with uncontrolled cancer pain (p＝0.007). No obvious change in the NRS was observed in 6 patients with the impossibility of oral administration. In 18 patients, there was no significant difference in adverse effects before and after opioid switching. Conclusion: These results indicate that the simple conversion ratio could be safety for opioid switching between OXJ and other opioid in cancer pain treatment.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the changes in the sense of difficulty hospital staff felt toward palliative care before and after a palliative care team of the pediatric hospital started in-hospital consultation. A self-administered questionnaire about the difficulty, consisting of 21 items in five areas, was used to conduct a survey in 2015 for the pre-consultation period, and in 2018 for the post-consultation period. Responses were obtained from 222 people in the pre-consultation period (response rate of 70.9%) and from 384 people in the post-consultation period (response rate of 87.3%). Over 70% of the respondents were nurses and midwives. A lower sense of difficulty was observed in three of the items including “relief of painful symptoms”, “family care during caregiving”, and “support when oneself and surrounding staff feeling inadequate and lost”. Further, a significant decrease was observed in the sense of difficulty in six items reported by nurses and midwives in departments receiving the interventions. Eleven of the 16 cases in which the palliative care team intervened involved multiple requests for intervention for 2 patients with pain control difficulties, suggesting that the consultation activities contributed to the decrease in the sense of difficulty experienced by nurses and midwives.