ReviewCureus2026
Cannabis Use in Orthopaedic Surgery: Effects on Fracture Healing, Opioid Requirements, and Clinical Outcomes.
Review in Cureus, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cannabis is commonly used by patients presenting for orthopaedic care, including musculoskeletal pain, sleep disturbances, anxiety, or recreational purposes. Because orthopaedic care depends on predictable bone healing, effective perioperative analgesia, and prevention of postoperative complications, the interaction between cannabis exposure and these domains remains uncertain. This narrative review synthesizes mechanistic, preclinical, and clinical evidence regarding the effects of cannabis and cannabinoid exposure on fracture healing, opioid requirements, and broader clinical outcomes in orthopaedic surgery, and draws on literature gathered via PubMed and Embase supplemented by manual review of references and a structured semantic search using an artificial intelligence assisted platform that screened more than 100 orthopaedic and perioperative studies. Experimental studies show that the endocannabinoid system influences osteoclast and osteoblast function and that smoked cannabis can impair cancellous bone healing in animal models, while cannabidiol may enhance fracture repair. In addition, observational data in humans associate heavy cannabis use with lower bone mineral density, higher fracture risk, and, in some settings, increased postoperative complications or risks of malunion or nonunion. Across heterogeneous orthopaedic and mixed surgical cohorts, chronic cannabis use is frequently associated with higher postoperative pain scores and greater opioid consumption, while small trials of pharmaceutical cannabinoids demonstrate at most modest opioid-sparing effects that have not translated into clinically important perioperative benefits. Taken together, current evidence does not support routine perioperative cannabis use to reduce opioid requirements and raises concerns regarding bone health and selected postoperative complications, particularly among heavy users, underscoring the need for systematic screening, counseling to avoid inhaled cannabis around fracture fixation or fusion, and reliance on validated multimodal analgesic strategies rather than cannabinoids.
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Registered trials
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