The Efficacy of Continuous Cold-Therapy on Postoperative Pain and Narcotics Use Following Spinal Fusion

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Patient outcomes and satisfaction are an ever-increasing priority in surgical specialties. Cryotherapy has been utilized following spine surgery as an adjunct therapy to reduce postoperative inflammation and improve patient outcomes. However, limited studies have investigated the effect of cryotherapy on postoperative pain and narcotics use. Fountas et al. performed a randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of postoperative cryotherapy following single-level lumbar microdiscectomy. The authors reported patients receiving cryotherapy required significantly less pain medication (0.058 mg/kg/hr versus 0.067 mg/kg/hr, p\<0.001) and had shorter hospital stays (1.71 days versus 2.65 days, p\<0.001) as compared to the control group. In another randomized trial of single-level lumbar discectomy patients, Murata et al. demonstrated cryotherapy to have no significant effect on VAS inpatient pain scores or postoperative blood loss.

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