Opioid Prescribing Guidelines for Arthroscopic Partial Meniscectomy Based on Patient-reported Opioid Consumption

$25.00

The purpose of our study was to determine the optimum number of opioid pills and morphine milligram equivalents (MME) required to treat postoperative pain following arthroscopic partial meniscectomy. A retrospective cohort study of 77 patients undergoing arthroscopic partial meniscectomy between January, 2017 and May, 2019 was conducted. Of patients, 19.48% took no opioids following surgery. Patients were prescribed 84.34 ± 49.54 MME on average and took 28.23 ± 40.99 MME. This equated to an average of 16.52 ± 8.85 narcotic pills prescribed and 4.90 ± 6.26 pills taken. Of 77 patients, 66 (85.7%) took less than 10 total pills, and 57 (74.0%) took 5 or fewer. Patients undergoing arthroscopic partial meniscectomy are commonly overprescribed opioids postoperatively. On average, patients consumed just under fi ve narcotic pills, less than one-third of the number prescribed. A standard prescription of 5 opioid pills or 25 MME is recommended for patients undergoing arthroscopic partial meniscectomy. (Journal of Surgical Orthopaedic Advances 29(4):240–243, 2020)

Key words: meniscus, meniscectomy, opioid, narcotics, pain

SKU: JSOA-2020-29-4-W11 Category: Tags: , , , ,

Justin Turcotte, PhD, MBA; Samuel Taylor, BS; Andrew Palsgrove, BS; Jeffrey Gelfand MD; Benjamin Petre, MD; and Daniel Redziniak, MD