FDA Set to Deliver on Promise of New Guidelines for Acute Pain

The Food and Drug Administration has tapped the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to help it develop guidelines for treating acute, short-term pain related to specific medical conditions and procedures. The FDA says its new standard will “build on” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s updated advisory, which does not distinguish among pain from fibromyalgia, arthritis, neuropathy, or any other medical condition. The FDA’s plan is to be more indication-specific. Another difference: The agency plans to host public meetings and workshops, and solicit the opinions of stakeholders from a variety of medical specialties, whereas the CDC held no public hearings and was criticized for not engaging more pain management experts. One general approach is already clear: The FDA guidelines are expected to focus on prescribing fewer doses of opioid medications when they’re warranted, rather than a typical 30-day supply, based on the expectation that pain due to injury or the postoperative period will be short-lived. Even patients who stop taking opioid medications when their pain subsides may unwittingly contribute to the national opioid crisis by failing to dispose of their excess pills, leaving them accessible for misuse by others. The FDA is relatively late to the game; in addition to the CDC, the American Pain Society, the University of Michigan, and numerous states have already adopted their own guidelines for prescribing narcotic pain relievers. It’s unclear how the FDA’s plans would affect those guidelines.