These 10 clinical factors may predict which patients will persistently use high doses of opioids in the year following knee replacement surgery, according to a new study published in Arthritis Care & Research.
In the study of 142,089 Medicare patients with osteoarthritis who underwent total knee replacement surgery and had no history of high-dose opioid use, 10.6% became persistent users of high-dose opioids after surgery.
Certain preoperative characteristics predicting the possibility of high-dose opioid use include demographics (age, sex, and race), history of substance abuse (opioids, alcohol, and tobacco), and medication use (benzodiazepines, anxiolytics, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs).
“We believe that our prediction model may help identify patients at high risk of future adverse outcomes from persistent opioid use and dependence after total knee replacement surgery.”
— senior author Seoyoung C. Kim, MD, ScD, MSCE, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School
[Source(s): Wiley, EurekAlert]
Related Content:
Opioid Use ‘Stigma’ Appears to Play Role in Acceptance of New Patients
How Opioid Prescriptions for Knee Surgery Vary from State to State
Don’t Feed Opioids to the Kids
