Journal of Pain Research (Nov 2023)
Race, Ethnicity, and Sustained Opioid Use After Major Abdominal Surgery for Cancer
Abstract
Pascal Owusu-Agyemang,1,2 Lei Feng,3 Juan P Cata1,2 1Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA; 2Anesthesiology and Surgical Oncology Research Group, Houston, TX, USA; 3Department of Biostatistics, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USACorrespondence: Pascal Owusu-Agyemang, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Unit 0401, Houston, TX, 77030, USA, Tel + 1 832 465 8964, Email [email protected]: Sustained opioid use is a well-known complication after surgery. Our objective was to determine whether there is any association between a patient’s race or ethnicity and the sustained use of opioids in the year following surgery. Opioid use over the initial 3, 6, and 12 postoperative months was categorized as “sustained early”, persistent, and chronic, respectively.Patients and Methods: Single-institution retrospective study of adults (≥ 18 years) who had undergone open abdominal surgery for cancer. Multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate the association between race/ethnicity and opioid use.Results: Of the 3523 patients included in the study, 2543 (72.2%) were non-Hispanic (NH) White, 476 (13.5%) were Hispanic or Latino, 262 (7.4%) were NH-Black, 186 (5.3%) were Asian, and 56 (1.6%) belonged to other racial or ethnic groups. The overall rates of sustained early, persistent, and chronic opioid use were 15.9%, 7.1%, and 2.6%, respectively. In the multivariable analysis, patient race/ethnicity was associated with sustained early postoperative opioid use (p-value=0.037), with Hispanics/Latinos having significantly higher odds than NH-Whites (OR = 1.382 [95% CI: 1.057– 1.808]; p = 0.018). However, neither persistent nor chronic opioid use was associated with race/ethnicity (p = 0.697 and p = 0.443, respectively).Conclusion: In this retrospective study of adults who had undergone open abdominal surgery, patient race/ethnicity was not consistently associated with the development of sustained opioid use over the first 12 postoperative months.Keywords: race, ethnicity, persistent, chronic, opioids, cancer
