Patients undergoing lower back surgeries had shorter hospital stays and fewer complications after a team at the Vanderbilt Spine Institute identified best practices for perioperative care and implemented them under a standardized protocol.

The Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Vanderbilt offers most of the treatments in the new guidelines for back pain recently recommended by the American College of Physicians, but misconceptions about those treatments remain a barrier to care.

Although nitrous oxide was less effective than epidural anesthesia for pain management during labor, mothers who used nitrous oxide were equally satisfied with their childbirth experience.

Many patients having surgeries at Monroe Carrell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt are experiencing better recoveries, with less opioids for pain, fewer post-surgery complications and shorter hospital stays due to the work of a medical team that has transformed the way surgeries are handled.

Collybolide – a natural product isolated from a mushroom – is a promising candidate for the development of non-addictive pain medicines.

New findings add to the understanding of how the enzyme COX-2 works, which is critical to the development of COX-2-targeted anti-inflammatory drugs.