“Over the past year, we have changed our pain management protocols at The Reinsch Pierce Family Center for Breast Health to reduce the amount of narcotic pain medication for breast cancer surgery patients. What has been the real game-changer in our pain protocols is the type of numbing medication we are using, EXPAREL®. A new, non-narcotic, long-acting injection, EXPAREL provides pain relief for up to 24 hours— a significant improvement over previous medications, which lasted only about 8 to 10 hours. Virginia Hospital Center is the only hospital in Northern Virginia to have this medication available to breast cancer patients—and it is making a big difference. More and more, patients tell me that they have zero pain after surgery. Once they go home, we’ve found that they require less, or for some patients no, narcotic medication during their recovery.
In our new approach, we give patients non-narcotic pain pills in the preoperative holding area, which helps relieve pain through different mechanisms. During surgery, I inject a long-lasting numbing medication every place I touch. This, combined with the non-narcotic pills given pre-surgery, enables the anesthesiologist to use less systemic narcotic pain medication overall.
All narcotics have the potential to be abused and the Surgeon General has asked all physicians to reduce the amount of narcotics prescribed. Treating pain with nonnarcotic medication is better—as long as we are able to keep our patients comfortable. Our outcomes consistently show that we can reduce the use of narcotics, while still effectively managing pain. In fact, we have been able to cut our use of narcotic pain medication in half. We are in the process of tracking our results to share with other breast health centers in the U.S.”
— Molly Sebastian, MD, FACS, Medical Director, The Reinsch Pierce Family Center for Breast Health, VHC Physician Group.