Reducing Postoperative Opioids in Patients Undergoing Laparoscopic Hiatal Hernia

The administration of perioperative opioids to nearly 80% of surgical patients leaves approximately 6 million Americans susceptible to becoming opioid-dependent. This practice has been hypothesized as a contributing factor to the ongoing opioid crisis, where currently more than 136 Americans die from an opioid overdose every day. Recent data suggest a potential benefit of reducing perioperative opioid use, while improving the quality of surgical recovery when employing an Opioid Sparing Anesthesia (OSA) protocol with non-narcotic analgesics. More than a million hernia repairs are performed each year in the US. With the significant nationwide obesity epidemic, it is estimated that the prevalence of hiatal hernias in the western population is approximately 20%. The investigators perform hundreds of laparoscopic hiatal hernia repairs annually at NorthShore University HealthSystem. Patients routinely receive fentanyl and other opioids during this surgery to reduce pain, but opioids also increase the risk of nausea, vomiting, and ileus. In addition, these patients are often times prescribed opioids upon discharge from the hospital. Preliminary results from a small, retrospective study among laparoscopic hiatal hernia surgical patients suggested that an OSA protocol with non-narcotic analgesics (that included dexmedetomidine and ketamine) resulted in a 33% reduction in those patients requiring opioids post-discharge. Moreover, these same patients had a significant reduction in hospital length of stay and nausea/retching. Therefore, the investigators propose a double-blinded randomized controlled trial to compare the number of patients in OSA protocol vs. Opioid Based Anesthesia (OBA) protocol groups, who require no opioids within 7 days postoperatively, (a time period where our quality data suggest nearly all patients receive postoperative opioids in this population).