With so much research focused on new analgesic drugs for humans, our hope would be that we could say the same about analgesic drugs for animals. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much activity from the pharmaceutical companies, at least not activity that will result in new advances anytime soon. There are a few new products that have been launched in other countries (outside the US) and a few methods of drug delivery that may be clinically available in the not too distant future. Also, there are drugs currently used in human medicine (both new drugs and reformulations of old drugs) that are new to veterinary medicine and most of these are just entering clinical trials for analgesic efficacy in our patients. There are other new drugs on the market and drugs in Phase III trials in human medicine that we have not yet begun to evaluate. Also, there are many drug targets that are still in Phase I and II human trials and should be discussed, although we may not be utilizing these products any timesoon. Fortunately for the immediate relief of pain in our patients, when we talk about analgesics, we don't have to limit Our thoughts to drugs (although this manuscript is focused on drugs) and many new non-pharmacologic techniques are being used and /or developed in both human and veterinary medicine.
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