A study, published in Anesthesiology, examined the effectiveness of a multimodal approach and an opioid-only approach to pain management after total hip or knee replacement.
Study researchers reviewed a nationwide database of joint replacement surgery data from 546 hospitals to examine analgesics use between 2006 and 2016. Researchers analyzed 512,393 hip replacements and 1.03 million knee replacement patients, comparing those who received opioids alone during surgery, on the day of surgery or during recovery to those who received multimodal therapy throughout. Multimodal pain therapy was used in 85.6 percent of total cases.
They found patients who received multimodal therapy after THR in addition to opioids had an 18.5 percent decrease in opioid prescription use after surgery. Those patients had 19 percent fewer respiratory complications, 26 fewer gastrointestinal complications and a 12 percent decrease in length of stay compared to those who received opioids alone.
TKR patients had an 18.5 percent decrease in opioid prescriptions, a 6 percent decrease in respiratory complications, 18 percent fewer GI complications and a 9 percent decrease in length of stay.
Hospital costs stayed the same in both instances.