Transdermal Buprenorphine: utilization trends in United Kingdom primary care practices
Background information: The utilization of transdermal buprenorphine rapidly increased in the past 10 years, since the first item launched in 2002. The increase utilization was suggested mainly causing by expending use for chronic pain control. Aims: This preliminary study assessed the utilizatio...
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| Format: | Conference or Workshop Item |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/35827/1/Transdermal_Buprenorphine.pdf http://irep.iium.edu.my/35827/ |
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| Summary: | Background information: The utilization of transdermal buprenorphine rapidly increased in the past 10 years, since the first item launched in 2002. The increase utilization was suggested mainly causing by expending use for chronic pain control.
Aims: This preliminary study assessed the utilization trend of both low (5, 10 or 20 μg/hour for 7 days) and high (35, 52.5 or 70 μg/hour for 4 days) dose of transdermal buprenorphine to explore the leading use items.
Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted from 2002 to 2010 using the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink which consists of primary care data from 639 practices. Transdermal buprenorphine prescriptions were extracted using specific product codes. Total and annual numbers of prescriptions were stratified by transdermal formulation doses and analyzed by simple linear regression.
Result: 339772 transdermal buprenorphine prescriptions were prescribed for 97035 patients from 2002 to 2010. Of these 81% (n=274613) and 19% (n=65159) of the prescriptions were prescribed for low- and high-dose formulations respectively. Transdermal buprenorphine 5 μg/h (34%) was the most frequently prescribed item followed by 10 μg/h (31%), 20 μg/h (16%), 35 μg/h (9%), 52.5 μg/h (5%) and 70 μg/h (5%). Annual number of prescriptions for all transdermal items significantly increased (11543%) during study period (P<0.001).
Conclusion: Low-doses (5 μg/h and 10 μg/h) transdermal buprenorphine were the most frequently prescribed and significantly contributed to the overall increased utilization of transdermal buprenorphine. Further research is required to analyze treatment indications and factors influence prescribing decisions.
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