Study finds opioids make only small difference in back pain

People with musculoskeletal back pain who were prescribed opioids didn’t fare much better than those not prescribed pain medications, according to a study conducted by several universities and health systems in Australia.

The study, published June 28 in The Lancet, included 347 participants “with 12 weeks or less of low back or neck pain (or both) of at least moderate pain severity.” Of them, 174 participants were given opioids for pain and the remainder were given a placebo.

When measuring reported pain at six weeks, using the 10-point pain severity subscale of the Brief Pain Inventory, the opioid group’s mean score was 2.78 and the placebo group reported a mean score of 2.25. Additionally, 35% of those in the opioid group reported at least one adverse event, most of which were drug-related, versus 30% in the placebo group.

The researchers wrote that “(o)pioids should not be recommended for acute non-specific low back pain or neck pain given that we found no significant difference in pain severity compared with placebo. This finding calls for a change in the frequent use of opioids for these conditions.”