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On December 14, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requested public comment on the draft CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain. The Guideline provides recommendations for primary care providers who are prescribing opioids for chronic pain and addresses: 1) when to initiate or continue opioids for chronic pain; 2) opioid selection, dosage, duration, follow-up, and discontinuation; and 3) assessing risk and addressing harms of opioid use.
ASA was invited by the CDC to be a member of their Stakeholder Review Group and make recommendations on a September 2015 version of the draft Guideline. ASA, represented by Asokumar Buvanendran, M.D., vice-chair of the ASA Committee on Pain Medicine, agreed that the Guideline reflected current best practices with a few important exceptions, including that the CDC should revise the Guideline to clarify that it does not apply to patients who have cancer with chronic pain. ASA is pleased that the CDC agreed with this recommendation, and ASA will review the current version of the draft Guideline and provide formal input to the CDC.
The CDC also announced that it will convene the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control’s Board of Scientific Counselors, a federal advisory committee, to review the draft Guideline. At a public conference call on January 7, 2016, this committee will discuss the background for developing the Guideline and the formation of a Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain Workgroup.
