How Much Opioid Medication Do Patients Need After Orthognathic Surgery?

PURPOSE: Opioid misuse is a public health crisis. It is incumbent upon surgeons to understand analgesic requirements for operations they perform to inform responsible prescribing practices. The purpose of this study was to quantify opioid use following orthognathic surgery. METHODS: This is a prospective cohort study including consecutive patients that had orthognathic surgery at the Boston Children's Hospital from May 2020 to September 2021. To be included, subjects had to have had a Le Fort I osteotomy, bilateral sagittal split osteotomies, or both. Subjects were excluded if they had a craniofacial syndrome (not including cleft lip and palate) or did not complete the study. Postoperative prescriptions and instructions were standardized. The primary outcome variable was total postoperative opioid use (inpatient + outpatient). Inpatient opioid delivery was recorded from the electronic medical record. Outpatient opioid use was ascertained via electronic questionnaire each day for 7 postoperative days. Descriptive and analytic statistics were calculated. RESULTS: Thirty-five subjects (54% male, age 18.7 ± 2.7 years) were included. Thirty-two subjects (91%) used postoperative opioid analgesia as inpatients, outpatient, or both, with mean total use of 18.2 ± 20.9 morphine milligram equivalents/subject (equivalent to 7.3 ± 8.4 oral oxycodone 5-mg doses). Nine (26%) subjects received inpatient opioid but did not use any oral opioid after discharge. As outpatients, a mean of 3.9 ± 5.5 oral oxycodone 5-mg dose was used per patient over 2.1 ± 2.1 postoperative days. Le Fort I osteotomy-only procedures had significantly lower (P = .032) and combined Le Fort I osteotomy and bilateral sagittal split osteotomy operations had significantly higher (P = .003) opioid requirements than the mean. Length of procedure and hospital length of stay were significant predictors of analgesic need, with an increase of 0.34 oxycodone doses/subject for each 10-minute increase in procedure time and 0.20 oxycodone doses/subject for each 1-hour increase in length of stay. Pain level on the first postoperative day was also a predictor of total opioid use (P < .050). CONCLUSION: Opioid use after orthognathic surgery is less than expected. Caution is necessary to avoid overprescribing.

Predicting Pressure Injury Risk in Pediatric Patients: The Braden QD Scale.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the development and initial testing of the Braden QD Scale to predict both immobility-related and medical device-related pressure injury risk in pediatric patients. STUDY DESIGN: This was a multicenter, prospective cohort study enrolling hospitalized patients, preterm to 21 years of age, on bedrest for at least 24 hours with a medical device in place. Receiver operating characteristic curves using scores from the first observation day were used to characterize Braden QD Scale performance, including areas under the curve (AUC) with 95% CIs. RESULTS: Eight centers enrolled 625 patients. A total of 86 hospital-acquired pressure injures were observed in 49 (8%) patients: 22 immobility-related pressure injuries in 14 (2%) patients and 64 medical device-related pressure injuries in 42 (7%) patients. The Braden QD Scale performed well in predicting immobility-related and medical device-related pressure injuries in the overall sample, with an AUC of 0.78 (95% CI 0.73-0.84). At a cutoff score of 13, the AUC was 0.72 (95% CI 0.67-0.78), providing a sensitivity of 0.86 (95% CI 0.76-0.92), specificity of 0.59 (95% CI 0.55-0.63), positive predictive value of 0.15 (95% CI 0.11-0.19), negative predictive value of 0.98 (95% CI 0.97-0.99), and a positive likelihood ratio of 2.09 (95% CI 0.95-4.58). CONCLUSIONS: The Braden QD Scale reliably predicts both immobility-related and device-related pressure injuries in the pediatric acute care environment and will be helpful in monitoring care and in guiding resource use in the prevention of hospital-acquired pressure injuries.

Long-term Outcomes After Flap Reconstruction in Pediatric Pressure Ulcers.

BACKGROUND: Pressure ulcers refractory to nonoperative management may undergo flap reconstruction. This study aims to evaluate the long-term outcomes and recurrence rates of flap reconstruction for pediatric pressure ulcers. METHODS: We reviewed the records of patients who underwent flap reconstruction for pressure ulcer(s) from 1995 to 2013. RESULTS: Twenty-four patients with 30 pressure ulcers, requiring 52 flaps were included. Ulcers were stages III and IV and mostly involved either the ischia (15/30) or sacrum (8/30). Flaps were followed for a median of 4.9 years. Twenty-three patients were wheelchair dependent, and 20 had sensory impairment at their ulcer site(s). Ten patients had a history of noncompliance with preoperative management, 8 of whom experienced ulcer recurrence. Twenty-one ulcers had underlying osteomyelitis, associated with increased admissions (P = 0.019) and cumulative length of stay (P = 0.031). Overall, there was a 42% recurrence rate in ulceration after flap reconstruction. Recurrence was associated with a preoperative history of noncompliance with nonoperative therapy (P = 0.030), but not with flap type or location, age, sex, body mass index, osteomyelitis, or urinary/fecal incontinence (P > 0.05, all). CONCLUSIONS: Flap reconstruction can be beneficial in the management of pediatric pressure ulcers. Although high rates of long-term success with this intervention have been reported in children, we found rates of ulcer recurrence similar to that seen in adults. Poor compliance with nonoperative care and failure to modify the biopsychosocial perpetuators of pressure ulcers will likely eventuate in postoperative recurrence. Despite the many comorbidities observed in our patient sample, compliance was the best indicator of long-term skin integrity and flap success.

Factors Associated With Late Surgical Cancellations in Pediatric Plastic and Oral Surgery.

BACKGROUND: Surgical cancellations that occur within 1 day of the procedure (ie, late cancellations) disrupt the efficiency of the operating room. The aim of the present study was to identify the factors associated with late cancellations in a tertiary pediatric surgical practice. METHODS: We reviewed the medical records of patients treated by plastic and oral surgery services at our institution from 2010 to 2015. We collected data pertaining to the timing and reasons for cancellation. Reasons for cancellation were retrospectively classified by the investigators as either "preventable," "possibly preventable," "unpreventable," or "undocumented." We also measured the frequency of cancellations based on type of surgery. RESULTS: Of 10,730 scheduled operating room cases, 444 (4.1%) were cancelled within 24 hours of the procedure. Sixty-seven percent (297/444 cases) were cancelled on the same day as the planned procedure, and the remaining cases were cancelled the day prior after 1 PM. Forty-two percent of cancellations were deemed preventable, and 45.3% of cases were deemed possibly preventable. The majority of procedures were cancelled because of illness (44%), inadequate fasting (9%), and parental inconvenience (7%). The highest frequency of cancellation was found in skin lesion (36%) followed by dentoalveolar (14%) and cleft lip and palate (12%) cases. CONCLUSIONS: In our study, most late surgical cancellations were preventable or possibly preventable. The timing of the cancellation is important because those that occur near the scheduled procedure time disallow adequate and timely redistribution of operating room resources and personnel. Analyzing and addressing the preventable and possibly preventable causes outlined in this study will significantly improve efficiency and patient access.

Assessing the Cost of Prophylactic Antibiotic Use After Cleft Lip and Lip Adhesion Procedures.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The purpose of this study was to understand the true cost of administering prophylactic antibiotics postoperatively to patients undergoing cleft lip and lip adhesion procedures for which the rate of infection is historically low. Using time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) methodologies, the plastic surgery department of one hospital created a process map with related time intervals and personnel cost rates for administering the antibiotic. The cost for each provider, based on standard salary information, was multiplied by the time required to complete his or her stage of the process, and this outcome was added to the supply costs. Overall cost was determined by summing the cost of all the steps. The cost of administering four doses of ampicillin/sulbactam to a patient during an inpatient stay ranged from $61.91 to $81.83. The total cost included all steps, from the initial antibiotic prescription through the final administration by a nurse. We attributed variations in cost to the staff member's level of familiarity with the antibiotic and dosing protocols for that patient. Over the course of a year, the cost of administering prophylactic antibiotics for this patient population was between $3,281.23 and $4,336.99. The results of this study effectively demonstrate the use of TDABC to determine the cost of administering prophylactic postoperative antibiotics. If we assume that antibiotics are of limited value for all clean-contaminated plastic surgery procedures, the plastic surgery department can expect to save $18,000 to $22,000 each year by forgoing their use. Furthermore, when clinically supported, reducing the use of prophylactic antibiotics not only diminishes the cost of care but also reduces the complexity of postoperative care.

CE: How to Predict Pediatric Pressure Injury Risk with the Braden QD Scale.

: The Braden QD Scale is a conceptually based, pediatric-specific, risk assessment instrument that reliably predicts both immobility-related and medical device-related pressure injuries in the pediatric acute care environment. A revision and simplification of the commonly used Braden Q Scale, the Braden QD Scale can be used to assess risk among the wide range of infants, children, and adolescents commonly treated in acute care environments. As part of a comprehensive program to prevent hospital-acquired pressure injuries, the Braden QD Scale promotes patient safety, quality of care and care monitoring, and effective resource use in pediatric hospitalized patients. The authors provide guidance on using the Braden QD Scale to assess pediatric patients and score their risk of pressure-related injury in numerous scenarios frequently encountered in acute care practice.