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

Background: 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.methods: 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.results: 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 < 0.05). the length of addiction had also a significant impact on the number of relapses, i.e., patients with over 10-year history of addiction had higher number of relapses if they were given bup/nx compared with bup (p < 0.05).conclusion: bup seems to be more effective than bup/nx in preventing addiction relapse in opioid abusers under maintenance treatment.