Buprenorphine for postoperative pain following general surgery in a buprenorphine-maintained patient.

摘要

Office-based, long-term buprenorphine is a growing treatment for opioid dependence (1). Patients with opioid dependence may require treatment for pain during their opioid therapy, and such treatment can be complicated. Recently suggested recommendations for the treatment of acute pain in a buprenorphine-maintained individual include the following four options: using concomitant short-term opioid analgesics, dividing the daily buprenorphine dose, replacing the buprenorphine with another opioid analgesic, or replacing the buprenorphine with methadone and then adding an opioid analgesic (2). We present a case of postoperative pain control in a buprenorphine-maintained patient, using supplemental doses of sublingual buprenorphine for pain management.