Opioid-free anesthesia—caution for a one-size-fits-all approach

Post-operative pain management should ideally be optimized to ensure patient’s mobilization and ability to partake in effective pulmonary exercises for patient’s early recovery. Opioids have traditionally been the main mode for analgesia strategy in the perioperative period. However, the recent focus on opioid crisis in the USA has generated a robust discussion on rational use of opioids in the perioperative period and also raised the concept of “opioid-free anesthesia” in certain circles. Opioid-related adverse drug events (ORADE) and questionable role of opioids in cancer progression have further deterred some anesthesiologists from the routine perioperative use of opioids including their use for breakthrough pain. However, judicious use of opioid in conjunction with the use of non-opioid analgesics and regional anesthetic techniques may allow for optimal analgesia while reducing the risks associated with the use of opioids. Importantly, the opioid epidemic and opioid-related deaths seem more related to the prescription practices of physicians and post-discharge misuse of opioids. Focus on patient and clinician education, identification of high-risk patients, and instituting effective drug disposal and take-back policies may prove useful in reducing opioid misuse.