Key clinical point: Knee surgery patients given tramadol had the least improvement in Knee Disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome Scores after 3 months, compared with those given narcotics or no opiates.

Major finding: After knee surgery, patients given tramadol improved an average of 12.5 points on an outcome score versus improvements of 19.1 and 20.1, respectively, in patients given narcotics or treatment-naive patients.

Study details: The data come from a retrospective study of adults who underwent total knee arthroplasty between January 2017 and March 2018.

Disclosures: The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.