Doctors Know? –
May 14, 2019 – Along with his team, lead author Cornelius Thiels, chief resident in general surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., combed through prescription records of more than 444,000 patients across the U.S. who had surgeries between 2009 and 2018. The team found that at least seven per cent of patients refilled their opioid prescription three to six months after surgery — and the most commonly prescribed opioid was tramadol.
“What we know now is there really is no safe opioid, and tramadol is not a safe alternative,” Thiels said. “Tramadol essentially has a similar risk of long-term dependence or long-term opioid use compared to other opIoids.”
