Dr Mazaheri stated, “Our diverse, multidisciplinary team aims to integrate expertise from psychology, neurobiology, artificial intelligence, and multi-omics to develop a model capable of identifying patients most susceptible to persistent opioid usage beyond 3 months post-surgery.
“From building these profiles we can better understand the patient’s likely response to pain management. Clinicians can build pain management plans that are appropriate to the patient’s post-surgery recovery, but also their longer-term wellbeing.”
Professor Fang Gao, Profess and NHS Consultant in Anaesthesia and Pain, said: “Opioids are used routinely and safely to treat acute pain during and after all major surgery. About 10% of patients typically have acute pain after surgery which is difficult to control in the hospital, but soon transition into chronic pain after they leave hospitals. It is these individuals who continue to need strong opioids, and have increased public health risks of opioid addiction. There has been a disconnection between the hospital and social care to identify those who are prone to addiction. Our project is timely funded to address this critical knowledge gap to identify those vulnerable individuals BEFORE surgery for effective prevention from the long term addition.”
The opioid crisis is a global public health emergency, impacting millions of individuals and communities. Each year, around 310 million major surgeries take place worldwide, including 6 million in the UK. Many people first encounter opioids when prescribed for post-surgery pain relief. While most discontinue use without issues, some become trapped in addiction. Identifying these subgroups provides insights for risk assessment and targeted interventions to combat the crisis
The Wellcome programme identified a critical gap in the understanding and treatment of substance use disorders and has funded 14 projects from institutions worldwide to address some of these key issues.
