In patients with chronic opioid use, intraoperative ketamine administration was associated with decreased opioid use at 1 month postoperatively following multilevel lumbar spine fusion. Ketamine should be considered an important adjuvant treatment for intraoperative pain management in patients with long-term opioid use. However, ketamine should be used with caution in opioid-naive patients as there was an increased incidence of long-term postoperative opioid use in this group.
Diltz et al. (Fri,) studied this question.