Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Supplies and Components Index
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • MedTech Resources
    • Medtech Events in 2025
    • The 2024 Medtech Big 100
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Educational Assets
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Voices
    • Video
  • 2025 Leadership
    • 2024 Winners
    • 2023 Winners
    • 2022 Winners
    • 2021 Winners
  • Women in Medtech
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe

Few Patients Maximize Opioid-Sparing Medications After Orthopaedic Surgery, Study Finds

May 7, 2018 By Johns Hopkins Medicine

A new study led by Johns Hopkins researchers adds to growing evidence that patients underuse nonopioid pain relievers to supplement opioid pain management after spine and joint surgery.

A report on the findings, which also shows that patients improperly store and dispose of unused opioids, was published in the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia. The report highlights the need for physicians to better educate patients on nonopioid alternatives as well as how to properly store and dispose of opioids in the home, the investigators say.

“We found that a very small percentage of patients use nonopioid medications such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen in addition to opioids to help manager their pain,” says Mark Bicket, MD, assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the paper’s first author.

“It’s clear we need to empower patients to ask their physicians about nonopioid pain management options, as well as call on prescribers to be more thoughtful of their prescribing practices,” says Bicket.

Bicket adds that if pain is more frequently managed with nonopioid options, fewer opioids will need to be prescribed and patients will have less available to be lost, sold, taken by error or accidentally discovered by a child.

In one of Bicket’s earlier studies, he reviewed half a dozen studies and found that most opioid pills prescribed after surgery went unused.

(image credit: Associated Press)

To further examine what happens to opioid pills after they are prescribed, as well as to determine whether patients used nonopioid medications in conjunction with their prescribed opioid prescriptions as recommended by evidence-based guidelines, the researchers recruited 140 inpatient adult spine and joint surgery patients at The Johns Hopkins Hospital from August to November 2016. Of the 140 patients in the study, 47 percent were women, the average age was 56, 58 percent reported a history of chronic pain and 74 percent were white.

Bicket and his team collected patient data such as history of substance abuse, self-reported pain scores and preoperative opioid use through in-person interviews and electronic health records. The researchers also conducted phone surveys after surgery at two days, two weeks, one month and six months to determine if and when patients stopped taking opioids, how many opioid tablets they had left, what other nonopioid pain treatments they used, and their knowledge and practice regarding safe opioid storage and disposal per the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendations.

Of these patients, very few used nonopioid medications in conjunction with opioid products throughout the study period. Two days after surgery, 82 percent of patients reported not using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and 44 percent reported not using acetaminophen. Only 5 percent used both NSAIDs and acetaminophen. One month post-surgery, only 6 percent of patients reported use of multiple nonopioid medications.

One month post-surgery, 73 percent of patients said they had unused opioids, 46 percent said they had 20 or more unused pills, and 37 percent said they had more than 200 morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs) of opioids.

While it’s difficult to definitively say how many MMEs are dangerous to take at one time, Bicket says 200 MME is considered by some experts as the dosage at which a patient who has never had opioids would overdose.

The majority of patients also reported unsafe storage (91 percent) and failure to dispose of (96 percent) opioids one month after surgery, as suggested in FDA guidelines.

Six months post-surgery, the percentage of patients who had unused opioids fell to 34 percent. Many still reported unsafe storage and failure to dispose of opioids (92 percent and 47 percent, respectively), with a large majority reporting they had not received instructions on how to store or dispose of opioids (83 percent and 75 percent, respectively).

Related Articles Read More >

This is a Zimmer Biomet marketing image of its Rosa robotic surgery system.
Zimmer Biomet seeks a ZBEdge for its Rosa robotic surgery
A photo of Capstan Medical's mitral valve implant, which uses nitinol.
Capstan Medical’s R&D head discusses the heart valve and robotics startup’s tech, engineering challenges and solutions, advice for others in medtech and how to join his team
An illustration of a neurosurgeon using a robotic endoscope to remove a brain tumor.
MDO Nitinol Innovation Special Report
A photo of Highridge Medical CEO Rebecca Whitney.
Highridge Medical is betting on this spine tech
“mdo
EXPAND YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND STAY CONNECTED
Get the latest medical device business news, application and technology trends.

DeviceTalks Weekly

See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Medical Design Sourcing
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to our E-Newsletter
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2025 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media LLC. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Supplies and Components Index
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • MedTech Resources
    • Medtech Events in 2025
    • The 2024 Medtech Big 100
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Educational Assets
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Voices
    • Video
  • 2025 Leadership
    • 2024 Winners
    • 2023 Winners
    • 2022 Winners
    • 2021 Winners
  • Women in Medtech
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe