“Most current heroin users started their opioid use with prescription drugs. This is not a problem confined to the pain clinic or primary care office,” he said. “Nearly one-quarter of initial prescriptions to opioid-naive patients are postsurgical. In fact, the most common complication can be considered new persistent opioid use. So clearly, there is a pressing need for individualized postoperative prescribing. But this is difficult for us to do, because we don’t know what patient factors are associated with postoperative opioid use.”
