Several drug packages, including Subutex (high-dose buprenorphine, as sublingual tablets) boxes, were found near the corpse of a 25-year-old male drug addict, who apparently had committed suicide. The autopsy revealed a fatal respiratory depression. The toxicological investigations concluded that death resulted from massive burpienorphine intoxication. The determination of buprenorphine (BU) an...

Manipur and Nagaland in northeast India report an antenatal HIV prevalence of > 1% and the current HIV prevalence among injecting drug users is 24% and 4.5% respectively. Through support from DFID's Challenge Fund, Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA) established thirteen drop-in-centres across the two states to deliver opioid substitution treatment with sublingual buprenorphine for 1200 injecti...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to provide a preliminary assessment of the safety, tolerability, symptom control, and acceptability of buprenorphine-naloxone buccal film (BBN) for the maintenance treatment of opioid dependence in patients converted from buprenorphine-naloxone sublingual tablet or film (SLBN), as well as to determine the conversion ratio for switching patients from SLBN to...

A casual reader of the article by Kaur et al. in this issue of JMCP might find the results unimpressive for the intervention with buprenorphine-naloxone in 1 large managed care plan.1 Persistence with this intervention therapy to treat patients with a history of prescription opioid use was only 48% at month 1, 27% at month 6, and 20% at month 12. Even for the small proportion of patients persis...

INTRODUCTION Subutex is a sublingual formulation of buprenorphine that is used to treat opioid dependency. It may be abused parenterally with disastrous consequences. CLINICAL PRESENTATION We present 4 cases of parenteral abuse of Subutex resulting in severe upper limb complications. TREATMENT Two vascular complications were treated with combinations of anticoagulants, vasodilators, brachia...