What’s a ‘Safe’ Number of Opioid Pills?

One might say that new research is pointing to the Holy Grail of opioid prescribing: an evidence-based threshold. Researchers across three institutions—Harvard Medical School, Tufts Medical Center, and New England Baptist Hospital—published a study in the August 17, 2022, edition of The Journal of Arthroplasty: “A Safe Number of Perioperative Opioids to Reduce the Risk of New Persistent Usage Among Opioid-Naïve Patients Following Total Joint Arthroplasty.”