Intrathecal Morphine Injection for Postoperative Analgesia Following Gender-Affirming Pelvic Surgery: A Retrospective Case-Control Study.

Background Gender-affirming pelvic surgery (GAPS) can be associated with significant postoperative pelvic pain. Given the lack of available peripheral nerve blocks to the perineum, intrathecal morphine (ITM) injection could offer a potent analgesic modality for this patient population. No prior studies to date have been performed examining the analgesic effects of intrathecal morphine for these patients. Methods This retrospective case-control study aims to understand the postoperative analgesic effects of intrathecal morphine for these patients with a historical comparison group of patients who did not receive intrathecal morphine. Results Fourteen patients presented for gender-affirming pelvic surgery over an eight-month period at a single institution and were offered intrathecal morphine for postoperative analgesia. Their analgesic results were compared to a similar historical group of 13 patients who were not offered or declined intrathecal morphine. Conclusions Intrathecal morphine injection is a potent analgesic modality for patients presenting for gender-affirming pelvic surgery.

Predictive Analytics for Inpatient Postoperative Opioid Use in Patients Undergoing Mastectomy.

INTRODUCTION: The use of opioids in mastectomy patients is a particular challenge, having to balance the management of acute pain while minimizing risks of continuous opioid use postoperatively. Despite attempts to decrease postmastectomy opioid use, including regional anesthetics, gabapentinoids, topical anesthetics, and nonopioid anesthesia, prolonged opioid use remains clinically significant among these patients. The goal of this study is to identify risk factors and develop machine-learning-based models to predict patients who are at higher risk for postoperative opioid use after mastectomy. METHODS: In this retrospective cohort study, we collected data from patients that underwent mastectomy procedures. The primary outcome of interest was defined as oxycodone milligram equivalents (OME) greater than or equal to the 75% of OME use on a postoperative day 1. Model performance (area under the receiver-operating characteristics curve (AUC)) of various machine learning approaches was calculated via 10-fold cross-validation. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were reported. RESULTS: There were a total of 148 patients that underwent mastectomy and were included. The medium (quartiles) postoperative day 1 opioid use was 5 mg OME (0.25 mg OME). Using multivariable logistic regression, the most protective factors against higher opioid use was being postmenopausal (OR: 0.13, 95% CI: 0.03-0.61, p = 0.009) and cancer diagnosis (OR: 0.19, 95% CI: 0.05-0.73, p = 0.01). The AUC was 0.725 (95% CI: 0.572-0.876). There was no difference in the performance of other machine-learning-based approaches. CONCLUSIONS: The ability to predict patients' postoperative pain could have a significant impact on preoperative counseling and patient satisfaction.