VIDEO: Standardized opioid prescribing schedule may reduce number of opioids prescribed
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SAN FRANCISCO — Use of a standardized opioid prescribing schedule may reduce the number of opioid tablets prescribed after ACL reconstruction and rotator cuff repair, according to a presenter here.
“Although we did statistically decrease the number of opioid tablets that were prescribed, there was not a statistically significant difference in the number consumed, although it did decrease overall,” Ryan H. Barnes, MD, chief resident at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, told Healio in a video interview at the Arthroscopy Association of North America Annual Meeting.
Barnes noted 45 5-mg oxycodone tablets were prescribed to patients who underwent either ACL reconstruction or rotator cuff repair during the 6-month observational lead-in period of the study, with approximately 23 tablets and 22 tablets consumed for patients in the ACL reconstruction and rotator cuff repair groups, respectively.
“Using this data and standard deviations, we then created our standard opioid prescribing schedule or a SOPS,” Barnes said. “For this, we decided to create the SOPS being 30 tablets of the 5 mg oxycodone along with other multimodal analgesia of 30 tablets for ACL reconstruction and 40 tablets for rotator cuff repair.”
After implementation of the SOPS, Barnes noted a statistically different number of opioid tablets prescribed in the preoperative and postoperative periods. Although the number of opioid tablets consumed decreased overall, it did not reach statistical significance, according to Barnes.
“It went from 23 and 22 between ACL and rotator cuff, respectively, and decreased to 20 and 18, [respectively],” Barnes said.
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Barnes RH, et al. Reducing opioids following sports procedures lowers consumption without impacting pain. Presented at: Arthroscopy Association of North America Annual Meeting. May 19-21, 2022; San Francisco.
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