Journal of Surgery

Intravenous Acetaminophen: Assessment of Medication Utilization Evaluation Data in Peri-operative Pain Management

Abstract

Mark A Malesker, Anne L Bruckner, Brian Loggie and Daniel E Hilleman

Intravenous (IV) acetaminophen has become an accepted component of a multimodal analgesic strategy in perioperative patients. It is currently a branded drug (Ofirmev®) in the United States. The purchase price of the drug is greater than oral and rectal acetaminophen, intravenous ketorolac, and parenteral opioids. As a result, a large number of medication utilization evaluations (MUEs) have been conducted to evaluate the appropriateness of IV acetaminophen use. Many of these MUEs have failed to demonstrate the expected benefits observed with the use of IV acetaminophen in randomized, controlled trials. This review summarizes the major methodological flaws seen in many of these MUEs. The most common flaws of the available MUEs were inclusion of inadequate numbers of patients, failure to adequately define the timing and duration of IV acetaminophen use, and failure to adequately match characteristics of patients receiving IV acetaminophen with control patients. An appropriately designed MUE for IV acetaminophen should take into consideration the identified methodological flaws described in this review. A template for a comprehensive MUE of IV acetaminophen is provided in the review. This template can be modified to meet institution specific criteria applied to the use of IV acetaminophen.