ArticleJournal of hand surgery global online2026
Regional Anesthesia in Thumb Carpometacarpal Arthroplasty: Increased Costs Without Differences in Early Emergency Department Visits or Opioid Prescriptions.
Article in Journal of hand surgery global online, 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
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Purpose: First carpometacarpal (CMC) osteoarthritis is increasingly treated with CMC arthroplasty. Perioperative regional nerve blocks are commonly used in upper-extremity surgery to improve postoperative pain control, but their effect on emergency department (ED) visits and opioid use after CMC arthroplasty remains unclear. We evaluated whether perioperative regional nerve blocks were associated with fewer postoperative ED visits and opioid prescriptions after CMC arthroplasty. Methods: Using a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant national database of 170 million patients, we identified individuals who underwent first CMC arthroplasty between 2010 and 2023 using Current Procedural Terminology codes. Patients who received a perioperative regional nerve block were matched 1:1 to those who did not by age, sex (male or female as recorded in the database), and Elixhauser Comorbidity Index. Outcomes included ED visits within 7 days, opioid prescriptions (measured in morphine milligram equivalents) within 14 days, and episode-of-care cost. Results: We identified 181,241 patients who underwent CMC arthroplasty and created two matched cohorts of 33,186 patients each (76.8% women; mean age = 61.48 [standard deviation, 8.42] years). Patients who received a regional nerve block had a higher episode-of-care cost than those who did not ($2,247.00 [quartile 1-quartile 3: $1,136.00 to $3,896.00] vs $1,419.50 [quartile 1-quartile 3: $629.50 to $2,609.90]). The rates of ED visits within 7 days were similar between groups (1.93% vs 1.90%). The numbers of opioid prescriptions within 14 days were also similar (median morphine milligram equivalents = 300.0 [quartile 1-quartile 3: 200.0 to 0.5] vs 300.0 [quartile 1-quartile 3: 200.0 to 500.0]). Conclusions: In this matched national cohort, perioperative regional nerve blocks during CMC arthroplasty increased episode-of-care cost without reducing the numbers of short-term ED visits or postoperative opioid prescriptions. Type of study/level of evidence: Retrospective comparative study III.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.