ArticleNorth American Spine Society journal2022
Opioid use after elective spine surgery: Do spine surgery patients consume less than prescribed today?
Article in North American Spine Society journal, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Friend or Foe: The Use of Cannabis as a Potential Analgesic in Postoperative Lumbar Spine Surgery.Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Global research & reviews · 2026Review
- Functional Outcomes After Hip Arthroscopy Based on Self-Reported Cannabis Use: A Matched-Controlled Study.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2026Article
- Robotic-assisted vs. fluoroscopy-assisted MIS-TLIF: improved screw accuracy and reduced early opioid use with comparable long-term outcomes.Frontiers in surgery · 2026Article
- Opioid-Induced Hyperalgesia and Inflammaging in the Management of Spine Pain: The Case for Genetically Directed Dopamine Homeostasis.International journal of spine surgery · 2025Article
- A Pharmacogenomics-Based In Silico Investigation of Opioid Prescribing in Post-operative Spine Pain Management and Personalized Therapy.Cellular and molecular neurobiology · 2024Article
- The opioid crisis as it pertains to spine surgery.Journal of spine surgery (Hong Kong) · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: The opioid epidemic in the US has led prescribers to reevaluate postoperative pain control particularly in the field of spine surgery, where postoperative analgesia requirements and consumption have historically been high. There is a need to mitigate the quantity of unused pills after surgery by adjusting prescribing practices. Achieving the balance of pain control after surgery without overprescribing opioids may be accomplished by developing a modified approach to prescribing practices; however, there is a need to first understand the opioid requirements of the modern spine surgery patient with respect to their elective spine surgery. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to determine the percentage of opioids not utilized at 90-days after elective spine surgery. Secondary aims were to identify differences in the percentage of unused opioids between surgical subgroups and preoperative opioid status, to determine factors associated with opioid utilization, and to estimate the distribution of opioids consumed to control pain up to the 90th percentile in each surgical subgroup. Methods: In this prospective, observational cohort study, adults undergoing elective spine surgery at a multi-surgeon, single center were prospectively enrolled and divided into subgroups: anterior cervical, lumbar decompression, and short-segment lumbar fusion. Prescribed MMEs were identified from prescriptions, consumed MMEs were obtained from pill counts, and the percent leftover was calculated. Distributions of MMEs consumed were analyzed to compare utilization between preoperative opioid users or non-users within each surgical subgroup. Results: Of 117 patients, 41.9% were preoperative opioid users. The percentage of unused opioids by surgical subgroup was: 45.4% cervical, 57.3% lumbar decompression, and 37.4% lumbar fusion ( Conclusions: At 90-days, the percentage of unused opioids was over 45% in this cohort of elective spine surgery patients and was nearly double in the group without preoperative opioid exposure. These results suggest the modern elective spine surgery patient is using less opioids than prescribed, supporting the conclusion that the number of MMEs prescribed can be reduced to minimize quantities of leftover pills available for diversion, without sacrificing the priority of appropriate postoperative pain control.
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