Superiority of Buprenorphine over Suboxone in Preventing Addiction Relapse in Opioid Addicts under Maintenance Therapy: A Double-Blind Clinical Trial

In maintenance therapy for opioid addiction, to reduce the risk of buprenorphine (BUP) abuse, the combination of BUP and naloxone (NX) has been developed and is commercially available as suboxone (BUP/NX). This study was designed to compare addiction relapse frequency in patients receiving BUP and BUP/NX as maintenance therapy.
In this double-blind clinical trial with cross over design, 100 opioid abusers were randomly assigned to two treatment groups to receive either BUP or BUP/NX. After three months, without a time-out period, subjects undertook treatment with the other drug. The subjects were screened weekly for urinary morphine.
In each of the study arms, when the patients were given BUP/NX, the number of relapses was significantly higher compared to when they received BUP (0.13±0.24 vs. 0.04±0.09, P = 0.001). If participants’ age was taken into account, the number of relapses was significantly higher when BUP/NX was given in age groups of 31 to 40 years and over 50 years (P BUP seems to be more effective than BUP/NX in preventing addiction relapse in opioid abusers under maintenance treatment.