People with opioid use disorder in British Columbia who received methadone had a 37–40 per cent lower rate of treatment discontinuation compared with those who received buprenorphine/naloxone. The new research, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association , evaluated the risk of treatment discontinuation and mortality in people prescribed opioid agonist treatment (OAT) over a 10-year period. Reducing the risk of treatment discontinuation saves lives.
With thousands of lives lost since the introduction of fentanyl into B.C.'s unregulated drug supply, it is important that we continue to evaluate the best available treatment options.
Comparative studies like this using high-quality health administrative data are one of the best sources of evidence we have to evaluate how our treatment options are performing as the toxic drug supply continues to evolve." Dr. Bohdan Nosyk, Scientist, Centre for Advancing Health Outcomes and Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University The study, Buprenorphine/naloxone versus methadone for the treatment of opioid use disorder, was a collaboration between scientists and public health professionals from the Centre for Advancing Health Outcomes, Simon Fraser University, BC Centre on Substance Use, University of British Columbia (UBC), and McGill University in Canada, and universities and institutions in the United Kingdom, Austria, and across the United States.
This study included everyone in B.C. who re.
