NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Increasing the use of pain-killing opioids, such as morphine, to relieve the suffering of terminally ill patients does not shorten their lives, British researchers say.

Some doctors have expressed concern that upping doses of the drugs can hasten the end for terminally ill people, and have likened the practice to euthanasia.

In the July 29th issue of The Lancet, Drs. Andrew Thorns and Nigel Sykes of St. Christopher's Hospice in London write that ''comparison of patients who received a marked increase in opioids at the end of life with those who received no increase showed no significant difference in survival.''

``There is no connection between competent symptom control and euthanasia,'' Sykes said in a statement. ``This study dispels the myth that good pain control at the end of life means killing the patient. People should not fear that taking morphine for pain need shorten life, and any doctor with such a worry about one of their patients should seek specialist palliative care advice.''

The team sought to explore to what degree the so-called doctrine of double effect (DDE) operates in the care of terminally ill patients.

``The DDE states that a harmful effect of treatment, even resulting in death, is permissible if it is not intended and occurs as a side effect of a beneficial action,'' Thorns and Sykes explain. They cite several court cases in Britain that suggested the DDE was being invoked ``as a cover for euthanasia.''

By reviewing the doses of opioids used in 238 dying patients, and comparing patients who received increased doses with those who had not, the doctors determined that all dose adjustments were reasonably justified and that no cases indicated that the ``DDE could have been implicated.''

They conclude that the ``appropriate use of opioids for symptom control does not shorten life and there is little if any need to invoke DDE.''

(From Yahoo)