| Journal | Neurosurgery |
| Study Type | Cohort |
| Population | Human participants |
This item covers developments relevant to cannabis medicine and clinical practice. Clinicians monitoring evidence in this area should review the source material.
While prior studies have examined the role of opioids, alcohol, and marijuana use on early postoperative outcomes after elective spine surgery, longitudinal studies evaluating the impact of objectively identified preoperative substance use on 12-month outcomes are lacking. This prospective cohort study included adults who underwent preoperative urine toxicology (UTox) screening followed by elective spine surgery between September 2020 and February 2024. Chart review and phone outreach were completed to collect demographic, UTox, surgical, and patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMs) data up to 1-year postoperatively. PROMs, overall and stratified by UTox-identified alcohol, marijuana, and opioid use, were evaluated using repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and mixed-effects regression analyses, adjusting for age, sex, BMI, comorbidities, and neurosurgical history. Among 185 participants (mean age 59.5, 57% female), preoperative UTox revealed 16% alcohol use, 23% marijuana
“This is a development worth tracking. The clinical implications will become clearer as more evidence accumulates.”
💬 Join the Conversation
Have a question about how this applies to your situation? Ask Dr. Caplan →
Want to discuss this topic with other patients and caregivers? Join the forum discussion →
Have thoughts on this? Share it:
FAQ
This study item was assembled from normalized source metadata and pipeline scoring.
