Postoperative Pain, Narcotics Consumption, and Patient-Reported Outcomes Based on PROMIS Physical Function Following a Single-Level Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion.

Abstract

Retrospective. To determine the association between preoperative Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Physical Function (PF) scores with postoperative pain, narcotics use, and patient-reported outcomes (PRO) following a single-level anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) procedure. There is a scarcity of prior literature on the ability of baseline PROMIS scores to predict clinical outcomes for patients undergoing ACDF procedures. Patients who underwent a primary ACDF were retrospectively reviewed and stratified into low and high disability cohorts. Preoperative PROMIS PF cohorts were tested for association with demographic and perioperative characteristics using chi-square analysis and one-way analysis of variance. Cohorts were tested for association with inpatient pain scores and narcotics consumption, as well as postoperative improvements in PROMIS PF, neck disability index (NDI), and visual analog scale (VAS) neck and arm pain using linear regression. Ninety one patients were included: 39 low disability and 52 high disability. Inpatient postoperative VAS pain scores and narcotic consumption are also compared between cohorts. Patients with greater disability reported higher VAS pain scores (P = 0.003). However, patients in both cohorts consumed comparable amounts of narcotics (P = 0.926). Patients with greater preoperative disability demonstrated lower PROMIS PF scores, greater NDI scores, and greater VAS Neck scores at the preoperative baseline. However, patients demonstrated similar improvement of VAS neck and arm pain, as well as NDI at all postoperative timepoints. Patients with low disability reported worsened physical function at the 6 weeks timepoint. Patients with worse preoperative disability as measured by PROMIS PF reported increased pain but comparable narcotics consumption in the immediate postoperative period following a single-level ACDF procedure. Furthermore, patients experienced similar long-term postoperative improvement of PROs regardless of preoperative physical function. PROMIS PF can efficiently quantify physical function before and after the ACDF procedure as self-evaluated by patients. 3.