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CASE REPORT article

Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Addictive Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1500799
This article is part of the Research Topic Substance Use Disorder: Above and Beyond Addiction, Volume II View all 22 articles

Local anesthesia with lidocaine infiltration for extended-release buprenorphine therapy

Provisionally accepted
Pouya Azar Pouya Azar Jane Kim Jane Kim *Ella Rohani Ella Rohani Dayyon Newman-Azar Dayyon Newman-Azar Matin Narimani Matin Narimani Jessica Machado Jessica Machado Victor Li Victor Li
  • Vancouver General Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Extended-release buprenorphine (BUP-XR) is a once-monthly subcutaneous injection for the treatment of opioid use disorder. Injection-site pain is a common adverse event reported with BUP-XR administration. Notwithstanding the advantages of BUP-XR, subjective pain and anxiety associated with injections can compromise patients' willingness to receive treatment. Lidocaine is an amide-type agent and sodium channel blocker commonly used for local and regional anesthesia in various fields of medicine. Case presentation: We present two cases involving lidocaine infiltration to the induction phase of BUP-XR therapy in an outpatient setting. Prior to the intervention, 2 mL of 1% lidocaine was infiltrated subcutaneously at the sites of the planned needle insertion for a numbing effect. The following BUP-XR therapy was well tolerated by both participants and reported as a painless procedure.Lidocaine infiltration may be a feasible way to successfully initiate and provide BUP-XR therapy to those who may be deterred by injection-related risks. Our cases describe how lidocaine can be useful in mitigating injection-site pain and encouraging greater uptake, and in turn, greater retention in opioid agonist therapy.

    Keywords: Opioid use disorder, Lidocaine, Extended-release buprenorphine, Injection site pain, case series

    Received: 23 Sep 2024; Accepted: 08 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Azar, Kim, Rohani, Newman-Azar, Narimani, Machado and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jane Kim, Vancouver General Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.