Impact of Preoperative Opioid Use Disorder Meds on Surgery Outcomes

Preoperative medication for opioid use disorder (OUD) reduces complications in surgical patients with OUD.

• Among 917,754 surgical patients, 1.6% had OUD; of these, 27.6% were using medication for OUD preoperatively.
• Patients with OUD had significantly higher rates of postoperative opioid use (42.2% vs. 8.2%), ED visits (21.7% vs. 6.9%), and readmissions (6.6% vs. 2.2%) compared to opioid-naïve patients.

Preoperative use of medications like buprenorphine or methadone can lead to fewer complications and should be considered in surgical planning for this patient group.