Introduction: Opioid dependency is a major epidemiologic problem with profound morbidity and mortality. Despite the availability of effective treatments, there are often overwhelming barriers to those treatments.
Case presentations: We present a case series involving a novel approach to the induction phase of buprenorphine or buprenorphine-naloxone therapy using transdermal buprenorphine. This approach has been demonstrated in inpatient settings but has not been widely explored in the outpatient setting. We demonstrated that a range of patients, from the highly medically complex to relatively straightforward cases, benefited from this approach.
Discussion: We believe that this approach can be used in a wide range of patients to transition from opioid use to buprenorphine therapy without the patient having to experience withdrawal or wait to start treatment. This should reduce the risk of lack of return for follow-up as well as decrease the dropout rate caused by patients being unable to tolerate withdrawal symptoms.