Decreased Opioid Prescriptions and Evolving Trends in Multimodal Pain Management Following Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction is a common surgery, following which pain control medications are often prescribed. In recent years, efforts have been made to minimize opioids and other nonnarcotic medications as multimodal regimens evolve following such surgeries. METHODS: Opioid-naïve ACL reconstruction patients were identified from the PearlDiver M165Ortho data set. Those with a history of substance abuse were excluded. Prescriptions of pain management medications were evaluated in the 90 days following surgery per 1000 ACL reconstructions and grouped into the following categories: opioids, benzodiazepines, NSAIDs, serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor/tricyclic antidepressant/antiepileptic, tramadol, gabapentinoid, and nonbenzodiazepine muscle relaxant.Trends for annual prescriptions and morphine milligram equivalents were defined. Multivariable analysis was performed to determine factors independently associated with narcotic prescriptions. RESULTS: A total of 101,331 ACL reconstruction patients met study inclusion criteria. In the 90 days following surgery, opioid prescriptions decreased from 402.7 per 1,000 ACL reconstructions in 2010 to 153.5 in 2021 (-61.9%). Prescriptions of other pain management drugs on aggregate decreased from 298.0 in 2010 to 129.8 in 2021 (-56.4%). Among patients who received opioids in the 90 days postoperatively, morphine milligram equivalents prescribed per 1000 ACL reconstructions decreased from 277,941 in 2010 to 39,640 in 2021 (-85.7%).On multivariate analysis, the strongest predictors of postoperative opioid prescriptions were younger age (odds ratio [OR] 1.30 per decade decrease, P < 0.0001), male sex (relative to female, OR 1.39, P < 0.0001), patient comorbidity (per two-point decrease in Elixhauser Comorbidity Index, OR 1.25, P < 0.0001), and region of the country where surgery was performed (relative to west, Northeast OR 1.20, South OR 1.22, Midwest OR 1.41, P = 0.0006, P = 0.0026, P = 0.0002, respectively). Neither having the use of regional nerve blocks nor having multiple concomittent knee procedures affected postoperative opioid prescriptions. CONCLUSION: Fewer prescriptions of both narcotic and nonnarcotic medications following ACL reconstruction had been written over the years from 2010 to 2021, likely in favor of nonprescription over-the-counter analgesics including NSAIDs and acetaminophen. There may be opportunities to further reduce opioid prescribing following ACL reconstruction, particularly among patients receiving regional nerve blocks or those undergoing isolated ACL reconstruction.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".