Tag: user_id 13800

Newswise — Online shopping for cigarettes and vaping products increased significantly in the weeks following the implementation of SB-793, a 2022 California law prohibiting the sale of flavored tobacco products. Researchers at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego identified potential loopholes in tobacco control policies due to the absence of explicit regulations on e-commerce sales in retailer licensing programs.

Reporting in the journal Tobacco Control on Nov. 7, 2023, researchers assessed the impact of California’s statewide flavor restriction on online shopping behavior among consumers. Comparing observed rates of shopping queries with expected rates, researchers discovered that shopping queries were 194 percent higher than expected for cigarettes and 162 percent higher than expected for vape products.

“Retailer licensing programs have proven to be effective in enforcing tobacco control laws. However, the exclusion of e-commerce retailers from these programs can undermine their impact,” said principal investigator Eric Leas, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at UC San Diego and director of the Tobacco E-commerce Lab.

Despite the flavor restriction imposed by SB-793, analysis of the first 60 websites returned in the search queries presented at least two online retailers offered access to flavored vaping products or menthol cigarettes to consumers in California — with one query returning as many as 36 websites (60 percent of the search results) — highlighting the potential shortcomings of retailer licensing programs that do not include e-commerce retailers in their regulations.

“The absence of explicit regulations on e-commerce sales can create loopholes in enforcing tobacco control laws, allowing consumers to easily access restricted products online,” said Leas. “By including e-commerce in the definition of ‘tobacco retailer’ and ensuring strict compliance monitoring, we can close these loopholes and improve the effectiveness of tobacco control policies.”

To address these concerns, the study authors recommend strengthening regulations to include e-commerce retailers within the scope of retailer licensing programs. Additionally, they emphasized the importance of monitoring online compliance to ensure the effectiveness of laws enforced through retailer licensing programs.

“The study’s findings have important implications for policymakers and public health advocates, emphasizing the need for comprehensive regulations that address the challenges posed by the growing e-commerce market for tobacco products,” said Leas.

Co-authors include: Tomas Mejorado, Raquel M. Harati, Shannon E. Ellis, Nora Satybaldiyeva, and Nicolas E. Morales, all of UC San Diego; and Adam Poliak, Byrn Mawr College.

This research was funded, in part, by the Tobacco Related Disease Research Program (T32IP4684).

Disclosures: The authors do not have any conflicts of interest to report.

Title: The E-Commerce Licensing Loophole: A Case Study of Online Shopping for Tobacco Products Following a Statewide Sales Restriction on Flavored Tobacco in California

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/tc-2023-058269

Newswise — Artificially causing – or inducing – labor is becoming increasingly common, yet this practice comes with risks and its level of success is difficult to foresee. But now, new research may offer a way to help predict outcomes and improve the process.

Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) have devised a non-invasive method of accurately measuring the electrical activity of uterine muscles. The results of a recent clinical study, published in the journal Current Research in Physiology, show that signals measured in pregnant patients prior to induction are strongly tied to whether their labor lasted less or more than 24 hours. The authors indicate that physicians could use the method to learn how patients might respond to induction and use the information to develop more effective strategies for labor and delivery.

If a pregnant person or their baby’s health would benefit from beginning labor sooner, health care providers may recommend inducing the process through medication or other means. Without any reliable monitoring instruments, physicians heavily rely on physical examinations and their experience to inform induction strategies.

Taking this approach, time spent in labor varies greatly from patient to patient and there is also a risk of excessive doses of induction medication causing harm.

“Sometimes women will sit there for 36 hours after being induced and nothing’s happening,” said Hari Eswaran, Ph.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UAMS. “We wanted to know when the uterus is prepared for labor. If we capture a physiological signature beforehand that indicates the chances of successful induction, that information can be used to personalize the approach.”

In search of telling cues, Eswaran and his co-authors previously developed the Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) Array for Reproductive Assessment, or SARA for short.

Gauging the electrical activity of various parts of the body through techniques such as electromyography, or EMG, is routine in the clinic. However, electrical signals from the uterus weaken by the time they reach the surface of the skin, making them particularly challenging to detect.

Instead of directly measuring electrical activity, SARA takes a back door.

Electrical current, whether passing through power cables or the muscles of the human body, always generates a magnetic field around it. And if you can detect the field, then you can work backwards to calculate the electrical current that produced it, Eswaran explained. This is the approach the researchers are taking with SARA’s array of 151 biomagnetic sensors.

In the new study, the authors analyzed measurements taken from 27 patients that were between 37 and 42 weeks pregnant. Each rested their abdomen on SARA’s sensors, which recorded the magnetic activity produced by the uterus prior to induction. The authors converted the magnetic signals into metrics related to the electrical activity, such as power. After noting how long it took for each patient to deliver, the authors examined their data and picked up on a significant pattern.

Patients that delivered their babies within 24 hours after induction exhibited four times as much uterine electrical power across entire recordings than those in labor for longer.

While none of the patients were experiencing contractions while SARA recorded signals, the results suggest that those with higher uterine electrical power were more prepared for labor, Eswaran explained.

Equipped with a tool that could help predict responsiveness to induction, physicians would be better informed in devising strategies tailored to individual patients. With further research, SARA could become such a tool, potentially providing guidance on when to administer induction medication and in what doses, which would lead to safer and more efficient labor and delivery.

“NIBIB provided grant funding over 15 years ago to support the development of the novel computational methods used in this clinical trial to predict labor contractions with SARA,” said Grace C.Y. Peng, Ph.D., director of the NIBIB program in Mathematical Modeling, Simulation and Analysis. “It is so rewarding to see this project demonstrate the translational potential of computer models to improve the quality of care in women’s health.”

This research was funded in part by a grant from NIBIB (R01EB007264).

This Science Highlight describes a basic research finding. Basic research increases our understanding of human behavior and biology, which is foundational to advancing new and better ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease. Science is an unpredictable and incremental process—each research advance builds on past discoveries, often in unexpected ways. Most clinical advances would not be possible without the knowledge of fundamental basic research.

Study reference: Sarah Mehl et al. Assessing uterine electrophysiology prior to elective term induction of labor. Current Research in Physiology (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.crphys.2023.100103

Newswise — COLUMBIA, Mo. — The rate of opioid use among pregnant women in the United States quadrupled between 1999 and 2014 and continues to rise — an alarming trend that researchers from the University of Missouri and University of Iowa say has exposed the stigma felt by opioid-dependent mothers and how their shame has negatively impacted the health care received by their infants.

Jamie Morton led a study, which was a metasynthesis of existing literature on the topic, as a doctoral student at the MU Sinclair School of Nursing. She said the findings can help ensure health care providers, family members, friends and community members emphasize messages of support and compassion toward opioid-dependent mothers during the perinatal stage, which in this study was defined as one year prior to conception, pregnancy, and up to 18-24 months postpartum.

“We found that because the mothers were made to feel badly about themselves, they would withdraw themselves from receiving health care,” Morton said.

Morton added that since the mothers were often not getting any emotional or social support from health care providers, family, friends or community members, they felt self-blame and would internalize the stigma.

“What was surprising was the stigma was also transferred to the baby, a term known as associative stigma. The moms felt their infants were not given the same level of care or were treated differently,” Morton said. “The moms would just withdraw from even receiving health care in the first place in an effort to protect their child from being stigmatized, so they were less likely to take their baby to the pediatrician and less likely to take advantage of developmental services for their baby.”

Morton explained that this sometimes led to the mothers being referred to as “noncompliant” or “bad mothers.”

The researchers analyzed and synthesized 18 qualitative studies involving women of childbearing age in the U.S. who expressed feeling stigmatized due to their opioid dependence during the perinatal stage, as well as how the stigma impacted the health care they received for themselves and their babies.

“How often do we hear the phrase ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’?” Morton said. “Personally, I think everyone should be given a chance and treated with the same kindness and compassion as anyone else.”

Morton formerly worked in a newborn nursery and remembers mothers that would be very withdrawn.

“I made it a point to just treat them as any other mom, because all moms deserve our support as nurses and health care providers,” Morton said. “We just need to promote the opportunity for them to still be at the center of their health care decisions regarding both them and their babies as well as promoting their role as a mom.”

The research could potentially lead to more formalized education that could include trauma-informed care, topics such as trust, active listening, unconscious bias, and not judging based off assumptions. This could result in opioid-dependent mothers feeling more comfortable accessing care for themselves, taking their baby to the pediatrician or taking advantage of developmental services for their baby. This would ultimately improve both the mom’s and the baby’s long-term health outcomes.

“This expands way beyond nurses and health care providers, who, in general, do a great job of showing support, kindness, and compassion to the patients they serve,” Morton said. “This expands to the importance of family, friends, community members and the general public showing support, kindness and compassion. It is an honor and privilege to elevate the voices of these vulnerable women because their voices are not typically heard, but they need to be so we can meet their health care needs.”

“Stigma experienced by perinatal women with opioid dependency in the United States: A qualitative metasynthesis” was recently published in the Western Journal of Nursing Research. Funding was provided by the National Institutes of Health through a training grant awarded to the MU Sinclair School of Nursing.

Newswise — Rutgers researchers have used neuroimaging to demonstrate that cocaine addiction alters the brain’s system for evaluating how rewarding various outcomes associated with our decisions will feel. This dampens an error signal that guides learning and adaptive behavior.

The observed changes likely propagate a mysterious aspect of some addictive behavior—the tendency to keep doing harmful things that sometimes have no immediate benefit. Those changes also make it harder for long-term users of cocaine to correctly estimate how much benefit they’ll derive from other available actions.

Experts have long hypothesized that cocaine and other addictive substances can influence “reward prediction errors,” a computation the brain performs to guide learning about what is valuable in one’s environment. The substances were thought to increase reward prediction errors by interfering with the neurotransmitter dopamine’s activity, but concrete evidence for alterations in this critical brain function in people with chronic cocaine addiction has eluded researchers.

The new study, which appears in Neuron, provides strong evidence and could suggest new strategies for treating addiction in general and cocaine addiction in particular.

“The brain has sophisticated mechanisms for predicting which behaviors will bring us pleasure and pain, for updating predictions that prove incorrect and for learning how rewarding different behaviors actually are,” said lead author Anna Konova, a psychiatry professor who leads a research lab at the Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care and Brain Health Institutes.

“This sort of learning from experience is one of the most important things people do. It’s why you don’t touch a hot stove more than once. This study demonstrates that people with chronic cocaine-use disorders could struggle to learn in this way. It also shows why they struggle, and, hopefully, this understanding of the underlying mechanism will lead to better treatment options,” said Rita Goldstein, Mount Sinai Professor in Neuroimaging of Addiction at the Icahn School of Medicine who is senior co-corresponding author on the study.

The researchers studied the brain’s prediction error mechanism by recruiting people who had been using cocaine for an average of 18 years and asking them to play simple decision-making games (with small monetary rewards that could be received either for sure or by chance) — all while undergoing a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. The researchers then asked the same of another group of participants who had never used cocaine but resembled the first group in many other ways.

The group of participants that had used cocaine consistently pursued riskier playing strategies. They also had lower neural error signals when an unexpected reward was delivered or omitted as a result of those riskier decisions.

The brain’s response to mistaken predictions, the response needed to encode an error’s occurrence and avoid repeating it, was significantly lower among the cocaine-using group than among the other participants.

Such findings strongly implicate the physiological effects of chronic cocaine use on the observed differences in brain function, but the researchers note that a snapshot of brain function at a single point in time cannot prove causation. Only a study measuring brain structure and function over time, starting before the onset of cocaine use, would be able to test hypotheses about cause and effect.

That said, Konova and Goldstein believe the study results provide strong new evidence about one cause of cocaine addiction and the changes it creates in user behavior. They also hope a greater understanding of the underlying mechanisms may help develop treatment options, which remain limited.

“Although this basic science study does not have any immediate implications for public health or treatment, researchers can build on these findings to explore new treatments and prevention strategies,” Konova said. “Specifically, our findings suggest that interventions that aim to boost the impact of the outcomes of one’s decisions (the perception of received rewards) may be a valuable strategy to normalize prediction error signaling and learning from experience in addiction.”

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL
Wednesday, October 25 at 11am EST
Media Contact: Elizabeth Dowling
Mount Sinai Press Office

Dysregulation of the Brain’s Reward Learning System Is Identified by Scientists as a Potential Driver and Treatment Target for Cocaine Addiction 

Newswise — New York, NY (October 23, 2023) –A Mount Sinai-led team of researchers has shed new light on the ways in which cocaine addiction dysregulates the normal function of dopamine neurons and thus the brain’s ability to process and respond to reward-related information, making it more difficult for individuals to change their addictive behaviors.

Their insights into the neural mechanisms that mediate and maintain continued cocaine use, reported in the journal Neuron, could potentially lead to interventions to modify and even prevent this addiction.

“Previous research, mostly in animal models, has suggested that chronic cocaine use degrades the normal functioning of dopamine, a neurotransmitter widely implicated in reward, motivation, and learning,” said Rita Z. Goldstein, PhD, the Mount Sinai Professor in Neuroimaging of Addiction at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and senior author of the work.

“In people with chronic cocaine addiction we observed a striking reduction in the way their reward system—a set of connected regions along the brain’s dopamine pathways—responds to the outcomes of the person’s decisions,” Dr. Goldstein added. “Instead of signaling clearly when an unexpected reward was received and broadcasting this information throughout the brain to inform future decisions, the signal was attenuated, making it harder to learn from experience and modify decision-making to obtain better outcomes. This finding could potentially inform therapeutic strategies to target addictive cocaine use behaviors, which are especially difficult to change since this system is not functioning properly.”

The study was designed to investigate whether people with chronic cocaine use disorder demonstrate differences in how their brains process and represent prediction “errors”—discrepancies between what an individual expects to receive as a reward and what they actually receive. This difference is used as a “teaching signal” by the brain to guide learning and adaptive decision-making.

For their study, researchers used a simple decision-making task inspired by studies of dopamine neurons in animal models to measure different kinds of reward responses in the ventral striatum, a brain region that receives dense dopaminergic inputs. The results showed that prediction error responses in the ventral striatum reflected “utility” prediction errors—errors that incorporate an individual’s subjective experience of reward as informed by their unique preferences for risk and uncertainty. Importantly, utility prediction error responses were found to be significantly reduced in people with cocaine addiction, who were generally more risk-tolerant, especially those who began using cocaine in early adolescence.

“Our work firmly establishes that compared to non-addicted individuals, and despite generally intact reward expectations, people with cocaine addiction demonstrate weaker responses to actual rewards in the brain’s reward system, particularly the ventral striatum,” explains Anna Konova, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Rutgers University and first author on the study. “This is important because these responses are crucial for the fidelity of the prediction error signal as a teaching signal. A reduced reward signal may contribute to addictive behavior by diminishing an individual’s ability to respond to the harmful effects of a drug, or the value of other, healthier alternatives to drug use.”

Researchers suggest that understanding the precise mechanisms of prediction error alterations that drive addiction could lead to novel, targeted interventions designed to restore the aberrant teaching signal. More specifically, their study points out that therapeutic strategies that aim to boost the impact of one’s decisions—namely the perception of received rewards—could be valuable for normalizing prediction error signaling and the ability of the individual to learn from their addiction experiences.

“We’ve gone further than any prior study to characterize the mechanistic source of prediction error disruptions in people with clinically defined cocaine disruption and believe researchers can build on these findings to explore innovative new treatments and prevention strategies,” said Dr. Goldstein. She also serves as Director of the Neuroimaging of Addictions and Related Conditions (NARC) Research Program at Icahn Mount Sinai.

About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, more than 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time—discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.

Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,400 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. Hospitals within the System are consistently ranked by Newsweek’s® “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals” and by U.S. News & World Report‘s® “Best Hospitals” and “Best Children’s Hospitals.” The Mount Sinai Hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report® “Best Hospitals” Honor Roll for 2023-2024.

###

Newswise — Highly vulnerable patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) or substance use disorder (SUD) who received regular assessments after their initial intervention had substantially better outcomes a year later than those who did not receive the same follow-up, according to a new study. Fewer than one in ten people with SUD receive any form of treatment in a given year; among those who do, relapse and treatment reentry are common. A Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) protocol is intended to facilitate treatment referrals, especially among patients with more severe SUDs, but research has shown it to be relatively ineffective in that regard. Adding a Recovery Management Checkup (RMC) intervention can improve treatment rates; RMC conceptualizes AUD and SUD as chronic conditions requiring longer-term monitoring via regular check-ins, early re-intervention in cases of relapse, and treatment retention strategies. For the study in Alcohol: Clinical & Experimental Research, investigators explored the impact of quarterly RMC checkups over 12 months on treatment and substance use among patients at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), medical facilities serving populations experiencing socioeconomic hardship and often multiple chronic conditions.

Researchers worked with 266 participants in four FQHCs in Chicago, recruited between 2017 and 2020, who had moderate to high scores on an alcohol or drug screening test. Participants were predominantly male (65%) and African American (81%). In the past year, almost half had experienced homelessness, and fewer than half had been employed; most had problems related to physical and mental health and stress. All participants were referred for treatment. They were randomized to receive either SBIRT only or SBIRT followed by RMC. They were assessed at the start of the study and three, six, nine, and 12 months later. Those in the RMC group received personalized feedback and guidance using motivational interviewing and reinforcement of abstinence or support with reduced use and treatment. Urine testing initially confirmed the broad accuracy of participants’ reports, though it was discontinued during the COVID-19 pandemic. The investigators used statistical analysis to explore associations between the two intervention approaches and rates of treatment and substance use.

Quarterly checkups were associated with significant improvements in treatment initiation and reduced use of alcohol and cannabis, the most common substances. Over 12 months, participants assigned to SBIRT + RMC were more likely to attend treatment (61%) and received more days of treatment (mean 54 days) than those receiving SBIRT only (33%; mean 27 days). Those receiving RMC also reported, on average, more days of abstinence (173 compared to 140) and fewer days of alcohol and cannabis use, and had lower alcohol and drug use severity scores. More days of treatment was shown to be the mechanism for more days of abstinence. The use of opioids (e.g., heroin) and stimulants (e.g., cocaine) did not differ between the two groups, however.

The study confirmed the value of using RMC to improve patients’ linkage to treatment following SBIRT at FHQCs and demonstrated the added value of three subsequent checkups over 12 months. Among high-need populations, repeated assessments and connections to treatment may be a necessary element of care. More research is needed on the cost-effectiveness of RMC, which populations benefit most, and the real-world sustainability and scalability of the intervention.

A randomized controlled trial of recovery management checkups for primary care patients: Twelve-month results. C. Scott, M. Dennis, C. Grella, D. Watson, J. Davis, M. Hart. (pp xxx)

ACER–23–5643.R1

Newswise — Adults aged 60 and older reported better overall health and quality of life after treatment for their alcohol use disorder, according to a new study published in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research. Both male and female study participants also reported improvements in specific quality of life measures, including physical and psychological health, social relationships, and other environmental factors (e.g., including home environment, financial resources, transportation), and these improvements continued over time. The study supports the value of treatment of alcohol use disorder in older men and women, whose alcohol use disorder tends to be misdiagnosed and undertreated.

The study found small but significant improvements after treatment throughout the year-long study in overall perceived health among study participants. Improvements in overall perceived quality of life were significant in the short-term; and specific quality of life domains saw improvements that were maintained: physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environmental health. Gender was not associated with changes in any quality of life outcome measure.

In general, quality of life refers to an individual’s perceptions of how well they are doing in various domains, e.g. physical health, such as energy, pain, and fatigue; psychological health, such as self-esteem and positive and negative feelings; social relationships, e.g., personal relationships and social support; and environmental health, such as financial resources and engagement in recreational opportunities.

The purpose of this study was to examine how treatment for alcohol use disorder affected the quality of life of adults aged 60 and older and whether quality of life outcomes differed by gender. Researchers analyzed data from a single-blind randomized control study of almost 700 adults aged 60 and older diagnosed with alcohol use disorder, conducted at sites in Denmark, Germany, and the United States from 2014 to 2016. Participants received weekly treatment for up to 12 sessions and were asked to report on various measures, including drinking and quality of life at four, 12, 26, and 52 weeks. Seventy-one percent of participants reported reductions in the number of days they drank.

Older adults are more vulnerable to alcohol’s harmful effects, such as falls and accidents, and to the positive effects of treatment for alcohol use disorder. Yet, prior studies have suggested that alcohol use disorder is under-detected and undertreated in older adults, possibly because healthcare providers may believe that treatment is unlikely to benefit older adults. This study demonstrates the benefit of screening and treating older adults for problem drinking and the value of quality-of-life measures in assessing treatment effectiveness. It is unclear whether the study’s findings can be generalized to older adults from countries not included in this study, people with co-occurring health and mental health issues, or those with less severe levels of alcohol use.

Improvement in quality of life among women and men aged 60 years and older following treatment for DSM-5 alcohol use disorder. J. Tryggedsson, K. Andersen, S. Behrendt, R. Bilberg, M. Bogenschutz, G. Buehringer, A. Søgaard Nielsen. (pp xxx)

ACER-23-5691.R1

Newswise — SAN FRANCISCO — Although people with opioid use disorder (OUD) are significantly more likely to overdose or have a complication after major surgery than those without the disorder, using medications for the treatment of OUD before surgery may eliminate that extra risk, suggests a large, first-of-its-kind study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY^® 2023 annual meeting.

Patients with OUD who didn’t use an OUD medication (such as buprenorphine or methadone) were over four times more likely to overdose after having surgery, yet those who used evidence-based OUD medication before surgery were essentially at no greater risk than those who didn’t have OUD, according to the study. Taken orally, OUD medications reduce withdrawal and cravings and prevent opioids from producing the feeling of euphoria that drives addiction.

“We know that OUD treatments are very effective in helping to prevent relapse, overdose and death in nonsurgical patients, but our research is the first to show that they also may be remarkably effective in at-risk patients facing surgical stress and recovery pain that often is addressed with opioids,” said Anjali Dixit, M.D., MPH, a pediatric anesthesiologist at Stanford University, California. “This is helping us learn more about how to optimally treat OUD patients so that their surgical and post-surgical pain is well-controlled, while also making sure we are minimizing their risk of relapse and overdose.”

Researchers analyzed 4,030,032 surgeries performed between 2008 and 2020 from the Merative MarketScan Commercial Database, a nationwide sample of data from patients with both employer-sponsored and Medicare Advantage insurance. The analysis reviewed overdoses and other complications (such as OUD-related hospitalization or infection) that occurred in the three months after surgery for the 25 most common surgeries, including knee and hip replacement, hysterectomy and gallbladder removal.

Of the over 4 million surgeries, 26,827 were performed on patients who had a history of OUD, 9,699 (36%) of whom used OUD medications in the month before surgery and 17,128 (64%) who did not. OUD patients who did not use OUD medications were 4.2 times more likely to overdose or have an OUD-related infection or hospitalization than those who did not have the disorder, according to the study. OUD patients who used OUD medications did not experience a statistically different risk of opioid-related adverse events compared to those who did not have the disorder.

As many as 7.6 million people in the U.S. live with OUD, according to research, and that number continues to grow. Only 20% of people with OUD currently use OUD medications, said Dr. Dixit. She noted the number of people in the study who used OUD medications was likely higher, because they had access to commercial insurance and therefore, better access to care. The researchers also want to look at other populations such as those on Medicaid, because they may be sicker and have less access to care.

“The national efforts to increase access to OUD medications is good news for people with OUD, including those who need surgery,” said Dr. Dixit. “The next step is to determine if a particular medication or regimen is better than another.”

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ANESTHESIOLOGISTS

Founded in 1905, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) is an educational, research and scientific professional society with more than 56,000 members organized to advance the medical practice of anesthesiology and secure its future. ASA is committed to ensuring anesthesiologists evaluate and supervise the medical care of all patients before, during and after surgery. ASA members also lead the care of critically ill patients in intensive care units, as well as treat pain in both acute and chronic settings.

For more information on the field of anesthesiology, visit the American Society of Anesthesiologists online at asahq.org. To learn more about how anesthesiologists help ensure patient safety, visit asahq.org/MadeforThisMoment. Join the ANESTHESIOLOGY^® 2023 social conversation today. Like ASA on Facebook, follow ASALifeline on Twitter and use the hashtag #ANES23.