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About 20,000 adults die annually from accidental opioid overdoses. In response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a major new guideline for clinicians on appropriate opioid use. The guideline encourages use of nonopioid and nonpharmacological approaches to chronic pain, use of immediate-release rather than long-acting opioids, a limit on total daily opioid dosage of 50 morphine milligram equivalents (MME; equal to 50 mg of hydrocodone or 33 mg of oxycodone), avoidance of use in patients with sleep-disordered breathing, regular use of state prescription-monitoring programs, and avoidance of concomitant use of benzodiazepines (NEJM JW Gen Med May 1 2016 and JAMA 2016; 315:1624).
Other studies in 2016 addressed vario…