Postcraniotomy patients are at higher risk for requiring opioid pain medications if they have a history of preoperative opioid use, are of younger age, or undergo a longer surgery. Moreover, early requirement of intravenous opioid medications in the postoperative period should alert treating physicians that a patient's pain may require additional or alternative methods of pain control than routinely administered, to avoid over-reliance on opioid medications.
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Christensen et al. (1994) studied this question.
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