Journal Article

Randomised trial reveals opioids relieve acute back pain no better than placebo

Sullivan, Mark D, Ballantyne, Jane C

2023

Overview

Despite multiple trials and systematic reviews assessing opioid therapy for chronic back and neck pain, there have been few controlled trials of opioids in acute and subacute back and neck pain. [...]opioid therapy after 6 weeks offered no more relief for acute back and neck pain or functional improvement than placebo (pain mean difference between opioid and placebo 0·53 on a 10-point scale, 95% CI –0·00 to 1·07, p=0·051), and were also no better at 2 and 4 weeks of treatment or on more global outcomes such as physical function, quality of life, time to recovery, or work absenteeism. The Current Opioid Misuse Measure (COMM) is a widely used measure of current aberrant drug-related behaviour among chronic pain patients being prescribed opioid therapy.6 COMM has also been validated for patients who have received opioid treatment within the past year.7 At 52 weeks, about 25% of both the groups (48 of 174 in the opioid group and 40 of 172 in the placebo group) earlier randomly assigned to opioids and placebo were then taking opioids.

• Publisher: Elsevier Ltd,Elsevier Limited
• Subject: Absenteeism / Acute Pain - drug therapy / Analgesics, Opioid - therapeutic use / Back pain / Back Pain - drug therapy / Chronic pain / Humans / Low back pain / Low Back Pain - drug therapy / Narcotics / Neck pain / Opioids / Pain / Pain perception / Placebos / Primary care / Quality of life / Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Therapy