AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced the publication of a pooled analysis of Phase 3 data on the use of DSUVIA for acute pain management in the postoperative and emergency department settings in the Journal of Pain Research. The article entitled "Patient and Healthcare Professional Satisfaction Ratings and Safety Profile of Sufentanil Sublingual Tablets for Treatment of Acute Pain: A Pooled Demographic Analysis" by lead author David Leiman, MD, University of Texas at Houston Department of Surgery and HD Research, Houston TX, reported high ratings for global assessment of the method of pain control and a well-tolerated safety profile for all demographic subgroups following the dosing of sufentanil sublingual tablet 30 mcg (DSUVIA) in postoperative and emergency department patients. The global satisfaction analysis included a total of 283 patients who had completed the assessments as well as their healthcare professionals who had dosed DSUVIA in the clinical trials. The patient global assessment and the healthcare professional global assessment scale is a 4-point scale of poor, fair, good, or excellent for the method of pain control and these scores were assessed across the patient demographic subgroups of age, body-mass index, sex and race. Adverse events across these same demographic subpopulations were also assessed. Key findings included the following: The highest percent of excellent scores across all evaluations was for the HPGA in older patients (= 65 years), with 61% of healthcare professionals rating pain control in these older patients as "excellent"; there were no statistical differences across older versus younger patients for either PGA or HPGA. High ratings by both low (< 30 kg/m2) and high BMI (= 30 kg/m2) patients on the PGA were observed with 86% and 85%, respectively, rating "good" or "excellent" on the PGA; similar ratings were seen with the HPGA for these subgroups and no statistical differences were observed between the groups. Male and female patients had high ratings on both the PGA and HPGA, with HPGA scores statistically higher for male patients over female patients (p=0.023), while PGA scores were similar and not statistically different. There were no statistical differences among races for either the PGA or HPGA with each of these subpopulations scoring high percentages of "good" or "excellent" ratings. DSUVIA was well tolerated throughout the Phase 3 studies with 68% of the 323 total patients evaluated not experiencing any DSUVIA-related adverse events. Adverse events occurring in = 2% of the patients were nausea (22.9%), headache (5.0%), dizziness (4.0%) and vomiting (3.1%). Importantly, the adverse events of decreased oxygen saturation and somnolence were low, occurring in 1.5% and 1.2% of the patients, respectively. Study limitations included a higher enrollment of younger compared to older patients, and opioid-tolerant patients were excluded. These Phase 3 studies were funded by AcelRx and the Clinical and Rehabilitative Medicine Research Program (CRMRP) of the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC). Dr. Leiman is a paid consultant of AcelRx.