Fentanyl utility function: a risk-benefit composite of pain relief and breathing responses.

Boom M, Olofsen E, Neukirchen M, Fussen R, Hay J, Groeneveld GJ, Aarts L, Sarton E, Dahan A

Integrating opioid risk and benefit into a single function may give a useful single measure of the opioid's positive and negative effects. An explorative study on the effects of fentanyl on antinociception and respiratory depression was performed to construct fentanyl risk-benefit (utility) functions.