Woods C, Chai G, Meyer TS, et al. - Pharmacy prescription data were applied to calculate the number of opioid analgesic tablets dispensed annually in the U.S. Patterns of new use of opioid analgesics were studied by assessing how many opioid analgesic prescriptions and tablets were dispensed to patients with no opioid analgesic prescriptions in the previous year. The results of this study exhibited that individuals with ≥ 5 prescriptions comprised a small and decreasing proportion of all patients newly starting therapy. Nevertheless, despite a larger decline than tablets dispensed to patients with < 5 prescriptions within a year, these patients received almost half of all tablets dispensed within a year to patients in the study. Patients newly starting opioid analgesics declined from 47.4 million patients in 2011 to 37.1 million patients in 2017, and around 40% fewer tablets were dispensed within a year to patients starting in 2017 (2.4 billion) vs 2011.