Researchers studied 475 eligible patients from 18 surgical centers across the U.S., who underwent adult spinal deformity surgery between January 2008 and March 2015. They categorized patients’ self-reported opioid use as daily or nondaily. They also collected other patient data, such as baseline health characteristics and outcomes, preoperatively and postoperatively, at six weeks, one year and two years.
They found of the 425 patients included in the study, 44 percent self-reported daily preoperative opioid use. These daily users experienced more comorbidities, severe back pain and greater disability.
Additionally, daily users had a 70 percent higher likelihood of a prolonged length of stay in the hospital.
However, study authors did acknowledge the study’s limitations, which include the unreliability of self-reported opioid use, the inability to definitively say daily opioid use caused the poorer outcomes as well as the lack of information on patients’ specific opioid prescriptions.
More articles on opioids:
How Geisinger cut opioid prescriptions in half: 3 things to know
GOP lawmakers consider dropping Medicaid restrictions on opioid addiction therapy: 4 things to know
Surgeon general calls on public to carry naloxone
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