Opioid Use Patterns After Primary Total Knee Replacement

Orthopedic surgeries are associated with the prescription of more narcotics than any other surgical specialty, particularly for total knee replacement (TKR) surgery. The authors examined controlled substance prescriptions following TKR surgery in a sample of 560 TKR patients. Results indicated that of all the 5164 prescriptions documented on the controlled substance monitoring database, 64% were for opioid medications. More than half of the patients received controlled substances from both the surgery site provider and a nonsurgery site provider in the year following surgery. The authors recommend that providers consider the possibility of outside prescribing when prescribing opioid analgesic.

Source: Orthopedic Clinics of North America - February 10, 2021 Category: Orthopaedics Authors: Karen J. Derefinko, Zhenghua Gong, Zoran Bursac, Sarah B. Hand, Karen C. Johnson, William M. Mihalko Source Type: research