The prescribed opioid crisis as an impetus to improve postoperative pain management.

In addition, those patients taking modified-release opioids in the 6 months preceding surgery had an odds ratio of 3.5 for developing persistent postoperative opioid use; however, if they had stopped modified-release opioids more than 6 months pre-operatively, the odds ratio for persistent postoperative opioid use was reduced to 0.9. It is also increasingly recognised that effective treatment of post-surgical pain necessitates an overhaul: titrating opioids to the numerical pain score does not necessarily increase patient satisfaction but can increase the risk of opioid-related adverse drug events including opioid-induced ventilatory impairment and persistent postoperative opioid use [[3], [11]]. The researchers also found that the use of modified-release opioids significantly increased the risk of persistent postoperative opioid use in opioid-naïve and opioid-tolerant patients. Studies undertaken in North America have shown that up to 26% of opioid-naïve patients and 35-77% of patients with previous opioid exposure continue to take opioids more than 3 months postoperatively (and are therefore defined as having persistent postoperative opioid use [[3]]). [Extracted from the article]