Postoperative Pain and Opioid Use in Children with Supracondylar Humeral Fractures: Balancing Analgesia and Opioid Stewardship

Effective postoperative analgesia remains a priority in orthopaedic surgery, but concerns with regard to opioid diversion and misuse have brought overdue attention to improving opioid stewardship. Normative data for postoperative pain and opioid use are needed to guide and balance these dual priorities. We aimed to characterize postoperative pain and opioid use for an archetypal pediatric orthopaedic procedure: closed reduction and percutaneous pinning of a supracondylar humeral fracture. Children at a single pediatric trauma center who underwent closed reduction and percutaneous pinning of a supracondylar humeral fracture were enrolled and were prospectively followed. Validated pain scores (Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale) and opioid utilization data were collected using an automated text message-based protocol on postoperative days 1 to 7, 10, 14, and 21. Data were analyzed with descriptive and univariate statistics. Eighty-one patients with a mean age (and standard deviation) of 6.1 ± 2.1 years (62% of whom were male) were enrolled, including 53.1% who had Type-II fractures and 46.9% who had Type-III fractures. The mean pain ratings were highest on arrival to the emergency department (3.5 ± 3.5 points) and the morning of postoperative day 1 (3.5 ± 2.4 points). By postoperative day 3, the mean pain rating decreased to