CDC Proposes New Opioid Guidelines

The CDC has released a draft of their 2016 Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain, in which they outline 12 specific recommendations.

The guidelines deal with both initiation and continuation of opioid treatment for chronic pain, opioid selection, dosage, duration, follow-up, and discontinuation.
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The recommendations include:

  1. Use of immediate-release opioids at the lowest effective dose for initiation of opioid therapy.
  2. Take extra precaution when prescribing 50 morphine milligram equivalents per day, and avoid prescribing over 90 morphine milligram equivalents.
  3. Avoid prescription of opioids for acute, nontraumatic pain unrelated to major surgery for more than 3 days.
  4. Discuss the benefits and harms of opioid treatment with patients with chronic pain every 3 months.
  5. Utilize state prescription drug monitoring programs to review patient history before prescription of opioids for chronic pain and at 3-month intervals during treatment.
  6. Avoid prescribing opioids to individuals taking benzodiazepines.

A draft of the guidelines is available for review, and the CDC will be accepting public comments until January 13, 2016.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

CDC. Draft CDC guideline for prescribing opioids for chronic pain — United States, 2016. December 14, 2015. http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=CDC-2015-0112-0002.