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Perioperative Management of Patients with Addiction to Opioid and Non-opioid Medications

  • Other Pain (A Kaye and N Vadivelu, Section Editors)
  • Published:
Current Pain and Headache Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

With the rise of the opioid epidemic, anesthesiologists will find themselves faced with opioid-addicted patients more frequently. Addiction to opioids may also occur concurrently with abuse of other non-opioid medications. Our review article seeks to outline an armamentarium of pain management strategies in the perioperative period for these patients with addiction to opioid and non-opioid medications.

Recent Findings

Statistics from the CDC demonstrate a shocking increase in opioid prescription rates and opioid-related deaths. Furthermore, opioid-addicted patients have notoriously undertreated pain in the perioperative period. A multitude of strategies are available in the perioperative period to treat pain in these patients.

Summary

Formulating treatment plans for opioid and non-opioid-addicted patients undergoing surgery should include considerations in the pre-, intra-, and post-operative period. Our review article outlines several non-opioid modalities which may be employed to treat pain in these patients; however, particularly in the opioid-addicted population, the practitioner must be aware that non-opioids alone may not suffice to treat post-surgical pain. Consultation with pain management may be warranted to optimize opioid and non-opioid treatment for these patients.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street TMP 3, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA

    Donna-Ann Thomas, Praba Boominathan & Nalini Vadivelu

  2. Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care, Tata Medical Center Kolkata, Kolkata, India

    Jyotsna Goswami & Sudipta Mukherjee

Authors
  1. Donna-Ann Thomas
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  2. Praba Boominathan
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  3. Jyotsna Goswami
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  4. Sudipta Mukherjee
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  5. Nalini Vadivelu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nalini Vadivelu.

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Conflict of Interest

Donna-Ann Thomas, Praba Boominathan, Jyotsna Goswami, Sudipta Mukherjee, and Nalini Vadivelu declare no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Other Pain

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Thomas, DA., Boominathan, P., Goswami, J. et al. Perioperative Management of Patients with Addiction to Opioid and Non-opioid Medications. Curr Pain Headache Rep 22, 52 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-018-0704-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-018-0704-6

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