New approach lets patients start addiction treatment without first going through withdrawal

This study tested a new method for starting buprenorphine (a medication for opioid use disorder) in hospitalized adults who also have chronic pain. Instead of requiring patients to stop all other opioids and go through withdrawal first, the new method starts with very low doses of buprenorphine while continuing other opioids. The study enrolled 23 adults and compared this microdose approach to the standard method, looking at how many patients successfully started buprenorphine treatment.