Pharmaceutical combinations of opioid analgesics and analgesics that act through non-opioid mechanisms are commonly used to provide pain relief. An example of this pharmaceutical combination is the product Vicodin™, where the opioid analgesic is hydrocodone and the non-opioid is acetaminophen. However, liver toxicity from the acetaminophen component is common. The invention provides an improvement over the opioid and acetaminophen pharmaceutical combinations for the management of pain by the concomitant administration of an opioid analgesics and the non-opioid analgesic 3-hydroxyacetanilide. This combination has been found to exhibit unexpectedly enhanced analgesic activity when dosed orally in a mammal.
