Conditions: Opiate Addiction
Keywords: Opiate Addiction Narcotic Addiction Drug Addiction Pain
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 54
Healthy volunteers: yes

Brief summary:
The purpose of this study is to determine if buprenorphine or methadone is better for the treatment of chronic pain among patients who have become addicted to prescription narcotics.

Detailed description:
The purpose of this randomized clinical trial is to compare methadone with buprenorphine for the treatment of chronic pain among patients who have developed a physical dependence on prescription opiate analgesics that is associated with psychosocial dysfunction (i.e., addiction).

Arms:
arm 1: Methadone 10-60 mg per day in 2-4 divided doses for 6 months arm 2: Buprenorphine 4-16 mg per day in 2-4 divided doses for 6 months (using tablets of buprenorphine/naloxone:4/1 mg)

Interventions: intervention 1: Methadone intervention 2: Buprenorphine/naloxone
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Oral, 10-60 mg per day, 2-4 times per day, 6 months intervention 2: Sub-lingual, 4-16 mg per day, divided 2-4 times/day, 6 months

Protocol document: