Opioid Use After Elective Spine Surgery: Do Spine Surgery Patients Consume Less than Prescribed Today?

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. This study showed that at 90-days after surgery, the percentage of unused opioids was over 45% and was nearly double in the group without preoperative opioid exposure. These results suggest the modern elective spine surgery patient is using less opioids, 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.

Source:
Lindsay D. Orosz, Alexandra E. Thomson, Tarek Yamout, Fenil R. Bhatt, Brandon Allen, Thomas C. Schuler, Rita Roy, Christopher R. Good, Colin M. Haines, Ehsan Jazini, Opioid Use After Elective Spine Surgery: Do Spine Surgery Patients Consume Less than Prescribed Today?, North American Spine Society Journal (NASSJ) (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xnsj.2022.100185

Low Back Pain, Disability, and Quality of Life One Year following Intradiscal Injection of Autologous Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate

Degenerative disc disease is a common cause of chronic low back pain, but surgical intervention is an invasive treatment associated with high costs. There is growing interest in regenerative medicine as a less invasive but direct disc treatment for chronic discogenic low back pain. This multi-physician study evaluated clinical improvement of primary discogenic low back pain with intradiscal injection of autologous bone marrow aspirate concentrate (BMAC). The results of this study suggest that autologous intradiscal BMAC injection has the potential to clinically improve discogenic low back pain at one year while reducing disability ratings and increasing quality of life scores. This regenerative medicine procedure offers a direct and promising adjunct to traditional nonoperative treatments for chronic discogenic low back pain.

Colin M. Haines, Fenil R. Bhatt, Lindsay D. Orosz, Tarek Yamout, Samuel Namian, Niteesh Bharara, Anthony Bucci, Thomas C. Schuler, Ehsan Jazini, and Christopher R. Good, “Low Back Pain, Disability, and Quality of Life One Year following Intradiscal Injection of Autologous Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate,” Stem Cells International, vol. 2022, Article ID 9617511, 7 pages, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/9617511.