Precision Medicine Online: UC launches clinical trial for post-spinal surgery pain management

Precision Medicine Online highlighted a University of Cincinnati Gardner Neuroscience Institute clinical trial applying a personalized approach to pain management that doctors hope can improve post-surgical pain, reduce opioid dependence and reduce length of hospital stays.

More than half of patients who undergo spine surgery report poor pain control, and between 30 and 50 percent experience chronic pain for longer than 12 weeks (the time of routine tissue healing) following surgery.

Led by the University of Cincinnati's Owoicho Adogwa, MD, the trial takes patients' blood and saliva samples to see how their unique genes respond to different medications.

"Drug reactions vary significantly among individuals," Adogwa, assistant professor of neurosurgery in UC's College of Medicine, told Precision Medicine Online. "In spine surgery, traditional 'one size fits all' pain management is often inadequate due to genetic variations in drug metabolism."

Adogwa said early results of the trial have been encouraging, including shorter hospital stays for patients in the active arm of the trial. 

Read the Precision Medicine Online story.

Read more about the trial.

Featured photo at top of Dr. Adogwa in surgery. Photo/UC Health.