Photo Credit: Serhii Tychynskyi

A small number of surgical procedures, including orthopedic procedures and cesarean delivery, account for a large proportion of opioid prescriptions dispensed after surgery, according to a study in JAMA Network Open. The surgical procedures accounting for the highest proportion of opioids dispensed to adults after surgery in the United States were examined in a cross-sectional analysis of the 2020 to 2021 Merative MarketScan Commercial and Multi-State Databases. Data were included for 1,040,934 surgical procedures performed: 43.9% and 56.1% among patients aged 18 to 44 and 45 to 64, respectively. Researchers found that opioid prescriptions were dispensed for 48.3% of the procedures. Cesarean delivery accounted for the highest proportion of total morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs) dispensed after surgery among patients aged 18 to 44 years (19.4%). Four of the top five procedures among patients aged 45 to 64 years were common orthopedic procedures (eg, arthroplasty of the knee, 9.7%; arthroscopy of the knee, 6.5%).