Infectious Disease (ID) learning unit: What the ID clinician needs to know about buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder

Abstract

In the context of an escalating opioid epidemic, infectious disease clinicians increasingly treat the infectious complications of injection drug use. In this learning unit, we review the history, pharmacology, and clinical use of buprenorphine as maintenance therapy for opioid use disorder, and we describe the process by which clinicians can obtain a buprenorphine waiver.