What is "ketobemidone"

n. (context pharmaceutical drug English) A particular narcotic painkiller.

Ketobemidone (Cliradon, Ketogan, Ketodur, Cymidon, Ketorax, &c.) is a powerful opioid analgesic. Its effectiveness against pain is in the same range as morphine, and it also has some NMDA-antagonist properties imparted by its metabolite norketobemidone. This makes it useful for some types of pain that don't respond well to other opioids. The most commonly cited equalisation ratio for analgesic doses is 25 mg of oral ketobemidone hydrobromide to 60 mg of morphine hydrochloride or sulphate and about 8 mg of ketobemidone by injection and 10 mg of morphine.

The UN reported shortly after the beginning of marketing of ketobemidone that it was "nine times more active" than methadone, presumably as a euphoriant, and was thus labelled as extra-dangerous along with dextromoramide ("three times more active than heroin") and several other synthetics about the same time, as expanded upon below.

It is used for all types of severe pain, such as postoperative, cancer, kidney stones and fractures.