Hayes CJ, Gressler LE, Hu B, et al. - This study attempted to distinguish the trajectories that patients take after initiating long-term opioid therapy (LTOT). Researchers distinguished veterans with chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) initiating LTOT using a retrospective cohort design. The study enrolled a total of 438,398 veterans with CNCP who initiated LTOT. Nine opioid trajectories emerged which can be broadly characterized into three main trajectory groups among persons initiating LTOT: persistent opioid therapy (2 trajectories), reductions in opioid therapy (4 trajectories), and discontinuation (3 trajectories). It has been reported that a majority of patients (51.4%) maintained persistent opioid therapy. There is a need for future study to evaluate the risks of opioid-related adverse outcomes among the identified trajectories.