Patients who switch to buprenorphine see improvements in pain, quality of life
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Patients who switched to buprenorphine after using opioids to treat their chronic pain reported significant improvements in pain and quality of life, according to a retrospective analysis that was conducted at a pain management clinic.
“Patients are referred to [our] clinic by their primary care physician or other treating physician, with medical records extensively reviewed by the team prior to acceptance by the clinic,” study author Luc Frenette, MD, a physician who is affiliated with Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, told Healio Primary Care.
“Treatment protocols generally include a slow decrease in opioid dose started after 6 months of treatment,” he said. “If a patient fails to abide by the pain program during this time, then patients are offered the option to convert to buprenorphine therapy.”
The study included a convenience sample of 80 patients who had elected to switch to buprenorphine.
As patients entered the study, they were asked to rate their pain from one to 10 points — with 10 being the “worst” pain — as well as their quality of life based on the John Flanagan's Quality of Life Scale (QOLS).
The patients’ mean pain score was 8.425 points at the start of therapy, with a mean QOLS of 2.638 points. After 6 months, the mean scores were 2.89 points and 8.44 points, respectively (P for both, < .001), according to the researchers.
“A patient must first understand and accept the component of opioid dependence in his or her chronic pain to have success in this program,” Frenette told Healio Primary Care. “In patients who do proceed with buprenorphine, most state they wish they had started therapy much earlier.”
Frenette said it is important for patients and physicians to understand “that opioid dependence is generally a component of all chronic pain,” and that continued opioids “may not be treating the root cause of symptoms.”
“While many patients may feel their pain is real and unrelated to opioid dependence, the results of buprenorphine treatment in our clinic appear to show otherwise,” he added.