• Br J Anaesth · Nov 2019

    Trends in chronic opioid use and association with five-year survival in South Korea: a population-based cohort study.

    • Tak Kyu Oh, Young-Tae Jeon, and Jae Wook Choi.
    • Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, South Korea.
    • Br J Anaesth. 2019 Nov 1; 123 (5): 655-663.

    BackgroundThe Korean National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) was developed to provide population data for medical research. The aim of this study was to estimate trends in prescription opioid use in South Korea, and to determine the association between chronic opioid use and 5-yr mortality in cancer and non-cancer patients.MethodsA population-based cohort study was conducted amongst the South Korean adult population using data from the NHIS. Those prescribed a continuous supply of opioids for ≥90 days were defined as chronic opioid users. Multivariable Cox regression analysis was used to assess the association between chronic opioid use and 5-yr mortality.ResultsThe proportion of chronic weak opioid users increased from 1.03% in 2002 to 9.62% in 2015. The proportion of chronic strong opioid users increased from 0.04% in 2002 to 0.24% in 2015. In the 2010 cohort (n=822 214), compared with non-users, chronic weak opioid users had a significantly lower 5-yr mortality (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.93; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.89-0.96; P<0.001), and chronic strong opioid users had a significantly higher 5-yr mortality (HR: 1.45; 95% CI: 1.28-1.63; P<0.001). Similar results were observed in non-cancer patients, but chronic weak opioid users were not significantly associated with 5-yr mortality in cancer patients (P=0.063).ConclusionsIn South Korea, chronic opioid use has increased since 2002. Chronic strong opioid use was associated with a higher 5-yr mortality, and chronic weak opioid use was associated with a slightly lower 5-yr mortality. However, the findings regarding chronic weak opioid users should be interpreted carefully because there might be residual confounders in this study. Further study is needed to confirm these retrospective findings.Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…