Papers of the Week

In recent years, physicians and institutions have come to recognize the growing opioid epidemic in the United States thus prompting a dramatic shift in opioid prescribing patterns. The lack of well-studied alternative treatment regimens has led to a substantial burden of opioid addiction in the US. These forces have led to a huge economic burden on the country. The spine surgery population is particularly high-risk for uncontrolled perioperative pain, as the majority of patients experience chronic pain preoperatively and a substantial proportion of patients continue to experience pain postoperatively. Overall, there is a large incentive to better understand comprehensive multimodal pain management regimens, particularly in the spine surgery patient population. The goal of this review is to explore currents trends in pain symptoms in spine surgery patients, overview the current best practices in pain medications and management, and provide a concise multimodal and behavioral treatment algorithm for pain management which has since been adopted by a high-volume tertiary academic medical center.