Currently, the role of spine surgeons in causing and mediating long-term prescription opioid use is debatable. A study aimed to determine whether or not prescription opioids were used after lumbar disc surgery and to describe the source of opioid prescriptions by clinician specialization (surgeon vs. nonsurgeon). The authors used a retrospective review to find adult patients who had lumbar discectomy between 2010 and 2017 with a primary diagnosis of disc herniation. The primary outcome was sustained prescription opioid use, defined as issuing an opioid prescription 90 days or more following surgery.
A total of 622 patients with lumbar discectomy were included in this study. Following surgery, this population received a total of 610 opioid prescriptions. In total, 126 patients (20.3%) received at least one opioid medication in the 90 days following surgery. Non–inpatient prescriptions accounted for most opioid prescriptions, accounting for 494 of 610 (81%). Up to 15 months after surgery, a small percentage of lumbar discectomy patients acquire opioid prescriptions. Most of these prescriptions are written by nonsurgical doctors who are not part of the surgical team.
Reference:thejns.org/spine/view/journals/j-neurosurg-spine/35/6/article-p710.xml
