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.

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.