LAUSR

Cirrhosis patients have high rates of chronic pain, yet providers often struggle to manage pain in this population due to risks associated with multiple classes of analgesics. Opioids, in particular, are thought to exacerbate hepatic encephalopathy, and experts typically recommend dose reduction or complete avoidance in this population. Despite these recommendations, we found that cirrhosis inpatients were more likely to receive opioids than inpatients without cirrhosis. In the present study, we analyzed detailed clinical data from a large contemporary cohort of Veterans on long-term opioid therapy (LTOT), with and without cirrhosis, in an effort to better understand patient characteristics and analgesic prescribing patterns among cirrhosis patients on LTOT.