Opioid prescriptions for pain and epidemic of overdose death: can the dramatic reduction in anesthesia mortality serve as an example?

The annual number of US deaths from prescription-opioid overdose quadrupled between 1999 and 2010 and in 2010 alone reached 16,651. Deaths from opioid overdose have now surpassed the historic death toll from another drug-related epidemic – anesthesia mortality. In 1954, Beecher and Todd published reliable data on anesthesia-related mortality in the US, estimating the annual number of deaths to be nearly 5,000. Presently anesthesia/anesthetics are reported as the underlying cause in approximately 34 deaths in the US annually. This spectacular decline in anesthesia-related mortality could serve as an example for attempts to curb the epidemic of opioid overdose death. The main reason that led to the dramatic decline in anesthesia-related mortality is the context in which anesthetics are used. It includes training of the anesthesia providers, the introduction of specific standards of patient safety, and anesthesia monitoring. I suggest that the introduction of a similar multifactorial proper context for the use of opioids in the treatment of chronic nonmalignant pain might be the same “game changer” it was for safety in anesthesia.