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August 27, 2024
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Cryo-pneumatic compression may reduce opioid use, improve function after shoulder surgery

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Key takeaways:

  • A cryo-pneumatic compression device may decrease opioid consumption and improve function after shoulder surgery.
  • Outcomes were compared with standard of care rehabilitation.

Use of a cryo-pneumatic compression device may decrease opioid consumption and improve function after shoulder surgery compared with standard of care rehabilitation, according to published results.

Moin Khan, MD, MSc, associate professor of orthopedic surgery at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and colleagues performed a randomized controlled trial of 200 patients who underwent unilateral shoulder surgery between December 2019 and February 2023.

Trauma surgery
Patients who used a cryo-pneumatic compression device had decreased opioid consumption and improved function vs. patients who received standard rehabilitation. Image: Adobe Stock

Khan and colleagues randomly assigned 102 patients to use a cryo-pneumatic compression device (Game Ready ATX shoulder wrap, Avanos Medical Inc.) for postoperative rehabilitation and 98 patients to receive standard of care rehabilitation. According to the study, standard of care rehabilitation included rest, ice and compression using cryotherapy devices other than the cryo-pneumatic compression device.

Outcomes were collected at 2, 6 and 12 weeks postoperatively and included numeric rating scale pain scores, opioid consumption in morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs), SF-36 physical function scores and quality of life.

Overall, Khan and colleagues found patients who used the cryo-pneumatic compression device had decreased opioid consumption (median of 56.1 MMEs) compared with patients who received standard rehabilitation (median of 112 MMEs). In addition, they found patients who used the cryo-pneumatic compression device had significantly increased mean SF-36 physical function scores at 2 weeks compared with patients who received standard rehabilitation (61.2 vs. 54.2).

“The opioid use reductions demonstrated in this study suggest that cryo-pneumatic compression in conjunction with multimodal opioid-sparing protocols further reduces the reliance on narcotic medications,” Khan and colleagues wrote in the study.