Nationally, the opioid crisis has become a major epidemic with increasing mortality rates each year. Orthopedic surgeons routinely prescribe narcotics instead of NSAIDs for post-op pain control because of risk of delayed healing and nonunion due to NSAID use. Orthopedic oncology, however, has a unique subset of patients that undergo prophylactic placement of intramedullary femoral nails, often due to bone metastases that increase risk for future fractures. Because no fracture is present, these patients do not rely on inflammatory healing factors, allowing for post-op NSAID use.~Recent literature has demonstrated the efficacy of multi-modal pain management in treating post-op pain [1]. Currently, patients that undergo prophylactic intramedullary femur nail placement at SLU are often treated with both narcotics and toradol, as long as they can tolerate NSAIDs. However, the effect of toradol in addition to narcotics has not been determined. This study sets out to determine the effect of post-op toradol use in addition to opioids compared to solely opioids in patients undergoing prophylactic nailing of the femur.
Nationally, the opioid crisis has become a major epidemic with increasing mortality rates each year. Orthopedic surgeons routinely prescribe narcotics instead of NSAIDs for post-op pain control because of risk of delayed healing and nonunion due to NSAID use. Orthopedic oncology, however, has a unique subset of patients that undergo prophylactic placement of intramedullary femoral nails. Because no fracture is present, these patients do not rely on inflammatory healing factors, allowing for post-op NSAID use. This study sets out to determine the effect of post-op toradol use in addition to opioids compared to solely opioids in patients undergoing prophylactic nailing of the femur.