• Asimina Lazaridou, Myrella Paschali, Robert R Edwards, and Christopher Gilligan.
• Department of Anesthesiology, Harvard Medical School, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA.
• Pain Med. 2020 Dec 25; 21 (12): 3691-3699.

ObjectiveThe objective was to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature on the effects of buprenorphine on chronic pain outcomes (i.e., patient-reported pain intensity) in patients with and without opioid use disorder (OUD).DesignOvid/Medline, PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library were searched for studies that explored the effectiveness (in reducing pain) of buprenorphine treatment for chronic pain patients with and without a history of OUD. Randomized controlled trials and observational studies were included in the review.MethodsTwo separate searches were conducted to identify buprenorphine trials that included chronic pain patients either with or without OUD. Five studies used validated pain report measures and included a chronic pain population with OUD. Nine studies used validated report measures and included chronic pain patients without OUD. Meta-analysis was performed using the R, version 3.2.2, Metafor package, version 1.9-7.ResultsThe meta-analysis revealed that buprenorphine has a beneficial effect on pain intensity overall, with a small mean effect size in patients with comorbid chronic pain and OUD and a moderate- to large-sized effect in chronic pain patients without OUD.ConclusionsOur results indicate that buprenorphine is modestly beneficial in reducing pain intensity in patients without OUD. Although informative, these findings should be carefully interpreted due to the small amount of data available and the variation in study designs.© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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