New Henry Ford Health, Michigan Medicine Study Will Explore CBD Replacing Opioids After Surgery

Alternative medicines are a thing of the present, and given the country’s dependency on opioids, researchers in Michigan are on a search to find out if a common, less-addictive substance could curb or eliminate the dependency for certain uses.  Members of the Michigan Society of Anesthesiologists (MSA) are among those joining forces to launch the largest clinical trial yet to determine whether administering cannabidiol (CBD) before and after surgery can reduce the need for opioids following total knee replacement.   While the primary focus of this trial is on patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty, known as knee replacement surgery, researchers anticipate the findings could have far-reaching implications for the use of CBD over the course of the perioperative period — the time before, during and after surgery — across a diverse range of elective surgeries, where opioids continue to be the standard pain-relief treatment. CBD is the non-intoxicating compound derived from cannabis.   “This study could be a significant step forward in exploring additional pain management strategies and assessing the potential for CBD to reduce opioid consumption following surgery,” said Lara Zador, M.D., a co-investigator on the study who’s an anesthesiologist with advanced fellowship training in pain management and the director of...