Profiling multiple provider prescribing of opioids, benzodiazepines, stimulants, and anorectics.

BACKGROUND: The main objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of multiple providers for different controlled substances using the largest electronic prescription monitoring program (PMP) in the United States. A secondary objective was to explore patient and medication variables associated with prescriptions involving multiple providers. PMPs monitor the final allocation of controlled substances from pharmacist to patient. The primary purpose of this scrutiny is to diminish the utilization of multiple providers for controlled substances. METHODS: This is a secondary data analysis of the California PMP, the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES). The prevalence of multiple provider episodes was determined using data collected during 2007. A series of binomial logistic regressions was used to predict the odds ratio (OR) of multiple prescriber episodes for each generic type of controlled substance (i.e., opioid, benzodiazepine, stimulant, or diet pill (anorectic) using demographic and prescription variables. RESULTS: Opioid prescriptions (12.8%) were most frequently involved in multiple provider episodes followed by benzodiazepines (4.2%), stimulants (1.4%), and anorectics (0.9%), respectively. The greatest associations with multiple provider episodes were simultaneously receiving prescriptions for different controlled substances. CONCLUSIONS: Opioids were involved in multiple provider prescribing more frequently than other controlled substances. The likelihood of using multiple providers to obtain one class of medications was substantially elevated as patients received additional categories of controlled substances from the same provider or from multiple practitioners. Polypharmacy represents a signal that requires additional vigilance to detect the potential presence of doctor shopping.

Experience with penile venous surgery.

Venogenic impotence was detected in 37 out of 141 patients who attended our clinic with a complaint of erectile dysfunction. Eighteen patients presented with primary impotence and the rest had progressive secondary impotence. All 37 patients have shown partial or poor response to 60 mg of intracavernosal papaverine. The corporovenous leak (CVL) was diagnosed on the careful workup of dynamic pharmacocavernosometry and cavernosography. Concomitant arterial cause was noted in 10% cases on the basis of penile duplex Doppler ultrasound study. 24 patients in the age group of 23-60 years underwent the penile venous surgery. The CVL was noted in the deep dorsal vein (23 cases), cavernous vein (16) and in the crural vein (2). The operation consisted of deep dorsal vein (DDV) ligation and excision with all tributaries (8 cases) or DDV ligation and excision+cavernous vein ligation (13 cases), through an infrapubic curvilinear incision. One patient had crural vein ligation and corporoplasty through a perineal incision, one had direct corporeal revascularization for associated arteriogenic impotence with venous leak and another had distal spongiolysis and closure of a corporospongiosal shunt. The results were excellent in 11 cases, improved in 6 and 7 had failures. Surgical intervention is effective in CVL in selected cases but limiting factors in the form of increasing age, concomitant arteriogenic cause, significant crural leak, missing tributaries, recurrent venous leak and unknown factors may also be present to prevent total cure.