Papers of the Week

Posterior spinal fusion to correct adolescent idiopathic scoliosis is associated with significant postoperative pain. Different modalities have been reported as part of a multimodal analgesic plan. Intravenous methadone acts as a mu-opioid agonist and N-Methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonist and has been shown to have opioid-sparing effects. Our multimodal approach has included hydromorphone patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) with and without pre-incisional methadone, and recently postoperative methadone without a PCA.