Clinicians are increasingly being challenged by patients who are treated for chronic pain with high-dose opioids that can cause medical, social, and societal harm. These patients may best be improved by psychological approaches, adjuvant medications, and opioid reduction or removal, rather than ever-escalating dosing that has become common. Opioid reduction or removal can be a difficult process that, when done incorrectly, may cause patient dissatisfaction or severe discomfort. Buprenorphine, a partial opioid agonist, is slowly becoming recognized as an effective pain treatment, possessing a wide safety margin while offering the opportunity for stabilization of opioid dosing or even removal. We have developed a protocol for hospitalization of the most fragile or toxic patients detailed herein that can permit a comfortable conversion to buprenorphine from prior high-dose full agonist opioid therapy. Seventy-six consecutive patients with serious medical, psychological, or addiction comorbidities, treated with morphine equivalent doses exceeding hundreds of milligrams per day, were followed after conversion for up to 25 months. Two-thirds reported moderate to dramatic improvements of pain and functional status with an increase seen in employment. Median length of hospital stay was 2 days, and the median daily buprenorphine discharge dose was 8 mg. No adverse reactions or outcomes were observed. A brief hospitalization for conversion from high-dose opioid therapy to a safer, more effective buprenorphine regimen can produce life-altering improvement.

Background and Objectives This study was designed to test whether a brief quantitative sensory testing (QST) assessment could be used to detect hyperalgesia in patients with suspected opioid-induced hyperalgesia. Methods Twenty patients on long-term opioid therapy with suspected opioid-induced hyperalgesia were recruited along with and 20 healthy controls. Pressure pain threshold, Pain50, a measure of intermediate suprathreshold pressure pain sensitivity, and tolerance levels, were evaluated. As a secondary outcome, changes in pressure pain sensitivity following intravenous administration of placebo (saline) and fentanyl (1.5 μg/kg) were assessed. Results There were no significant differences in pain measures between healthy controls and patients. However, there was an association between higher doses of opioids and having a lower pain tolerance (r= -0.46, P=0.041) and lower Pain50 (r=-0.46, P = 0.044), which was consistent with the hypothesis. Patients on >100 mg oral morphine equivalents (OME) displayed decreased pressure pain tolerance compared to patients taking <100 mg OME (P = 0.042). In addition, male patients showed a hyperalgesic response to fentanyl administration, which was significant for the Pain50 measure (P=0.002). Conclusions Whereas there were no differences between patients suspected of having opioid-induced hyperalgesia and the healthy controls, the finding that higher doses of opioids were associated with more sensitivity suggests that dose might be an important factor in the development of hyperalgesia. In addition, male patients demonstrated a hyperalgesic response after a bolus of fentanyl. Future studies are needed to develop better diagnostics for detecting hyperalgesia in the clinical setting.

Buprenorphine is a partial agonist/antagonist used for the outpatient management of pain and addiction. It avidly binds to the opioid receptors and has a long and varied half-life. Its effects can impair the efficacy of opioids used for postoperative pain. The authors present a case of a patient managed with buprenorphine as an outpatient who presented for revision spine surgery and had significant postoperative pain that was successfully treated with hydromorphone and dexmedetomidine. This is the first reported use of dexmedetomidine for postoperative pain in a patient treated with buprenorphine.

All 4 treatments provided some benefit to patients with chronic LBP. According to the MTC analysis, TDR may be the most effective treatment and PT the least effective treatment for chronic LBP. This review is based on a limited number of RCT studies and does not support any 1 treatment modality for all patients.

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