Gabapentinoids use for alleviating postoperative pain on the rise: JAMA

A new study by Tasce Bongiovanni and team showed that the number of new postoperative gabapentinoid prescriptions rose without a subsequent decline in the percentage of patients getting postoperative opioids. The findings of this study were published in the Journal of American Medical Association.

With the aim of minimizing opioid use in the postoperative phase, guidelines from several pain societies have urged surgeons to use multimodal pain regimes, including by using gabapentinoids. By analyzing nationally representative Medicare data, this study sought to expand our understanding of variance by surgical technique by describing patterns in postoperative prescribing of both gabapentinoids and opioids following a range of surgical procedures.

A 20% US Medicare sample was employed in this serial cross-sectional analysis of gabapentinoid prescriptions from January 1, 2013, to December 31, 2018. Patients 66 years of age or older undergoing one of the 14 typical non cataract surgical procedures were included if they were gabapentinoid-naive. Data from April 2022 to April 2023 were examined. The primary outcomes were the rate of postoperative prescribing of opioids and gabapentinoids, which was defined as a prescription filled between 7 days prior to the operation and 7 days following discharge from surgery. In the postoperative phase, it was also evaluated if gabapentinoids and opioids were prescribed together.