Opioid Epidemic: Diagnosed, Started on Treatment?

In the March 2021 issue of the journal Pharmacoepidemiology & Drug Safety, an article by K. Bykov et al. was published, which contains an analysis of the use of opioid and non-opioid analgesics in US clinics in the period 2007–2017. According to the authors, the frequency of use of drugs in this group does not tend to decrease, despite the previously announced “opioid epidemic” in the USA. In Russia, the problem of the emergence of opioid dependence due to the perioperative use of drugs of this group is of little relevance. The existing legal restrictions on the prescription of opioid analgesics minimize this risk. But these same limitations make the idea of opioid-free analgesia very attractive in our country.