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Dose escalation during the first year of long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain.

ABSTRACT: To identify patient factors and health care utilization patterns associated with dose escalation during the first year of long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain.Retrospective cohort study using electronic health record data.University health system.Opioid naïve adults with musculoskeletal pain who received a new outpatient opioid prescription between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012 and stayed on opioids for 1 year.Mixed-effects regression was used to estimate patients' rate of opioid dose escalation. Demographics, clinical characteristics, and health care utilization for patients with and without dose escalation were compared.Twenty-three (9%) of 246 patients in the final cohort experienced dose escalation (defined as an increase in mean daily opioid dose of ?30-mg morphine equivalents over 1 year). Compared with patients without dose escalation, patients with escalation had higher rates of substance use diagnoses (17% vs 1%, P?=?0.01) and more total outpatient encounters (51 vs 35, P?=?0.002) over 1 year. Differences in outpatient encounters were largely due to more non face-to-face encounters (e.g., telephone calls, emails) among patients with dose escalation. Differences in age, race, concurrent benzodiazepine use, and mental health diagnoses between patients with and without dose escalation were not statistically significant. Primary care clinicians prescribed 89% of opioid prescriptions.Dose escalation during the first year of long-term opioid therapy is associated with higher rates of substance use disorders and more frequent outpatient encounters, especially non face-to-face encounters.

SUBMITTER: Henry SG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4390410 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Dose escalation during the first year of long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain.

Henry Stephen G SG Wilsey Barth L BL Melnikow Joy J Iosif Ana-Maria AM

Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) 20141219 4

<h4>Objective</h4>To identify patient factors and health care utilization patterns associated with dose escalation during the first year of long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain.<h4>Design</h4>Retrospective cohort study using electronic health record data.<h4>Setting</h4>University health system.<h4>Subjects</h4>Opioid naïve adults with musculoskeletal pain who received a new outpatient opioid prescription between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012 and stayed on opioids for 1 year.<h4>Methods</h ...[more]

PMID: 25529548

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Project description:ImportanceAttempts to discontinue opioid therapy to reduce the risk of overdose and adhere to prescribing guidelines may lead patients to be exposed to variability in opioid dosing. Such dose variability may increase the risk of opioid overdose even if therapy discontinuation is associated with a reduction in risk.ObjectiveTo examine the association between opioid dose variability and opioid overdose.Design, setting, and participantsA nested case-control study was conducted in a large Colorado integrated health plan and delivery system from January 1, 2006, through June 30, 2018. Cohort members were individuals prescribed long-term opioid therapy.ExposuresDose variability was defined as the SD of the milligrams of morphine equivalents across each patient's follow-up and categorized based on the quintile distribution of the SD in the cohort (0-5.3, 5.4-9.1, 9.2-14.6, 14.7-27.2, and >27.2 mg of morphine equivalents).Main outcomes and measuresOpioid overdose cases were identified using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision and International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision codes. Each case patient with overdose was matched to up to 20 control patients using risk set sampling. Conditional logistic regression models were used to generate matched odds ratios and 95% CIs, adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, drug or alcohol use disorder, tobacco use, benzodiazepine dispensings, medical comorbidities, mental health disorder, opioid dose, and opioid formulation.ResultsIn a cohort of 14 898 patients (mean [SD] age, 56.3 [16.0] years; 8988 [60.3%] female) prescribed long-term opioid therapy, 228 case patients with incident opioid overdose were matched to 3547 control patients. The mean (SD) duration of opioid therapy was 36.7 (33.7) months in case patients and 33.0 (30.9) months in control patients. High-dose variability (SD >27.2 mg of morphine equivalents) was associated with a significantly increased risk of overdose compared with low-dose variability (matched odds ratio, 3.32; 95% CI, 1.63-6.77) independent of opioid dose.Conclusions and relevanceVariability in opioid dose may be a risk factor for opioid overdose, suggesting that practitioners should seek to minimize dose variability when managing long-term opioid therapy.

Project description:BackgroundMany clinicians are reevaluating the use of long-term opioid therapy (LTOT) for chronic pain in response to the opioid crisis and calls from organizations including the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to limit prescribing of high-dose opioids. However, this practice change is occurring largely in the absence of data regarding patient outcomes. A 2017 systematic review found inconclusive evidence on the impact of LTOT dose reduction and discontinuation on pain severity and function, quality of life, withdrawal symptoms, substance abuse, and adverse effects. This rapid systematic review provides an updated evidence synthesis of patient outcomes following LTOT dose reduction including serious harms such as overdose and suicide.MethodsWe systematically searched numerous bibliographic databases from January 2017 (the end search date of the 2017 systematic review) through May 2020. One reviewer used prespecified criteria to assess articles for inclusion, evaluate study quality, abstract data, and grade strength of evidence, with a second reviewer checking.ResultsWe included 49 studies-1 systematic review, 34 studies included in that systematic review, and 14 new studies. We prioritized evidence synthesis of 19 studies with the most applicability to the Veteran population and outpatient settings. Among these studies, improvements in mean pain scores were common among patients tapering opioids while participating in intensive multimodal pain interventions and mostly unchanged with less intensive or nonspecific co-interventions. Our confidence in these findings is low due to methodological limitations of the studies. Observational data suggests that serious harms such as opioid overdose and suicidal ideation can occur following opioid dose reduction or discontinuation, but the incidence of these harms at the population level is unknown.DiscussionThe net balance of benefits and harms of LTOT dose reduction for patients with chronic pain is unclear. Clinicians should closely monitor patients during the tapering process given the potential for harm.

Project description:ImportanceRapid reduction or discontinuation of long-term opioid therapy may increase risk of opioid overdose or opioid use disorder (OUD). Current guidelines for chronic pain management caution against rapid dose reduction but are based on limited evidence.ObjectiveTo characterize the association between rapid reduction or abrupt discontinuation of opioid therapy (vs maintained or gradual reduction) and incidence of opioid overdose and OUD among patients prescribed high-dose, long-term opioid therapy (HDLTOT).Design, setting, and participantsThis retrospective cohort study was conducted among patients aged 18 to 64 years who were prescribed HDLTOT (≥90 daily morphine milligram equivalents for ≥90% of 90 days) from January 2006 to September 2018, with follow-up up to 4 years after cohort entry. Claims data were drawn from a large private health insurer in North Carolina and analyzed from March 1, 2006, to September 30, 2018.ExposuresTime-varying exposure of rapid dose reduction or discontinuation (>10% dose reduction/week) vs maintenance, increase, or gradual reduction or discontinuation.Main outcomes and measuresThe main outcome was incident opioid overdose (fatal or nonfatal) or diagnosed OUD. Inverse probability-weighted cumulative incidence of outcomes were estimated using the cumulative incidence function and hazard ratios (HRs) using marginal structural Fine-Gray models as a function of rapid dose tapering or discontinuation (vs gradual reduction or discontinuation or maintained or increased), accounting for competing risks.ResultsA total of 19 443 patients (median [IQR] age, 49 [41-55] years; 10 073 [51.8%] men) who received HDLTOT were identified. Rapid reduction or discontinuation was associated with higher risk of fatal and nonfatal overdoses compared with gradual reduction after the first year (year 1: HR, 1.43; 95% CI, 0.94-2.18; years 2-4: HR, 1.95; 95% CI, 1.31-2.90). There was no association between rapid reduction or discontinuation and diagnosed OUD through 2 years of follow-up; however, the hazard of incident OUD among patients exposed to rapid tapering or discontinuation was greater 25 to 48 months after the start of follow-up (HR, 1.28; 95% CI, 1.01-1.63).Conclusions and relevanceIn this cohort study, rapid dose reduction or discontinuation was associated with increased risk of opioid overdose and OUD during long-term follow-up. These findings reinforce prior concerns about safety of rapid dose reductions for patients receiving HDLTOT and highlight the need for caution when reducing opioid doses.

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Dose escalation during the first year of long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain.

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Dose escalation during the first year of long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain.

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