CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) is in the process of updating the 2016 CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain. CDC draft Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids (update to the 2016 Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain) has posted in the Federal Register. Today is the last day in the 60-day public comment period. The new proposed guidelines continue to urge prescribers to avoid using opioids for pain when possible and to be very cautious when necessary – but the new guidance eliminates the limits on dose and duration that was in the 2016 guidance (and in the Arizona Opioid Epidemic Act).
The proposed guidelines steer doctors away from using opioids as a first-line therapy for many common acute pain conditions — among them, lower back pain, musculoskeletal injuries and pain related to minor surgeries. It also discourages using opioids for chronic pain but acknowledges that opioid therapy can play a role in treatment, in particular if other approaches have been tried.
Visit the Federal Register to provide your comments on the draft Guideline update
Overall, you can view the new proposed guidance as an effort to relax some of the more restrictive and prescriptive aspects of the 2016 guidance.
The CDC’s webpage details the process of updating the Guideline.
Encourage people you know who have direct experience with the role of opioids in pain care and the importance of the patient-clinician relationship to visit the Federal Register, review the draft update to the Guideline, and add their perspectives to the Federal Register Notice.