关节置换，特别是膝关节置换术（knee replacement）是近年来常见的骨科手术。最近有研究表明，膝关节置换术前接受阿片类（opioid）药物止痛者，与未服用该类药物的同类患者比较，术后住院的时间较长、疼痛更甚和更易发生并发症，甚至更有可能需要采取其它的措施等。现在的结果提示，临床医生和膝关节异常的患者本人要慎用阿片类止痛药，以免影响手术治疗的疗效。更多资讯，请参阅原文：

Take Care with Pain Meds

Patients who use narcotics prior to knee replacement experience worse results

Rosemont, IL

　　Patients who are dependent on opioids (narcotic pain relievers) for pain management before "knee replacement surgery have much more difficulty recovering, a study recently published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) has found. These patients tend to have longer hospital stays, more post-surgical pain, a higher rate of complications, and are more likely to need additional procedures, than patients who are not opioid-dependent.

　　“We expected to find that the opioid-dependent patients have worse outcomes,” says orthopaedic surgeon Michael A. Mont, M.D., the principal investigator and Director of the Center for Joint Preservation and Reconstruction at the Rubin Institute for Advanced Orthopaedics at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore. “But the differences between the two groups of patients were even greater than we thought they would be. The chronic narcotics users did significantly worse in every category.”

Study Findings:

　　Patients included in the study were matched according to age, sex, body-mass index, insurance type, as well as a variety of medical factors. When those factors were accounted for, the study still found that chronic opioid 

Source: http://www6.aaos.org/news/pemr/releases/release.cfm?releasenum=1030