Prescription Opioid Analgesics Commonly Unused After Surgery

Prescription opioid analgesics play an important role in the treatment of postoperative pain; however, unused opioids may be diverted for nonmedical use and contribute to opioid-related injuries and deaths.

To quantify how commonly postoperative prescription opioids are unused, why they remain unused, and what practices are followed regarding their storage and disposal. EVIDENCE REVIEW: MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were searched from database inception to October 18, 2016, for studies describing opioid oversupply for adults after a surgical procedure. The primary outcome-opioid oversupply-was defined as the number of patients with either filled but unused opioid prescriptions or unfilled opioid prescriptions. Two reviewers independently screened studies for inclusion, extracted data, and assessed the study quality.