Patients' experiences with continuation or discontinuation of buprenorphine before painful procedures: A brief report.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Patients with opioid use disorder may be asked by their clinicians to discontinue maintenance buprenorphine treatment before surgical operations due to concerns that buprenorphine will interfere with acute pain management. However, discontinuation of buprenorphine may not be well tolerated or safe for all patients. We, therefore, administered a survey to better understand the experiences of patients on buprenorphine treatment who had previously undergone painful procedures and had their buprenorphine maintenance treatment either continued or discontinued before the procedure. METHODS: After this study received institutional review board approval, patients were invited to participate if they were being prescribed sublingual buprenorphine for treatment of opioid use disorder and had also previously undergone a painful procedure requiring treatment with full agonist opioids. Patients who were eligible and agreed to participate (n = 32) then completed a survey of basic demographics; medical, psychiatric, and substance use histories; and their experience and satisfaction with the treatment of pain and substance use in the perioperative period, including whether buprenorphine was continued or discontinued before their procedure. RESULTS: Compared with patients whose home dose of buprenorphine was continued (n = 15), patients whose buprenorphine was discontinued preoperatively (n = 17) reported less satisfaction with pain management and were more likely to be prescribed full agonist opioids upon discharge. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Consistent with prior studies, these survey findings suggest that discontinuation of buprenorphine before painful surgeries may be associated with poorer clinical outcomes. SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE: This survey study adds patients' perspective to a growing body of scientific literature suggesting that discontinuation of maintenance buprenorphine treatment before painful procedures may decrease patient satisfaction and increase clinical risk.

Symptom Overlap of Acute Mountain Sickness and Lithium Toxicity: A Case Report.

Uber, Amy, and Claire Twark. Symptom overlap of acute mountain sickness and lithium toxicity: a case report. High Alt Med Biol. 23:291-293, 2022.-Mild lithium toxicity and acute mountain sickness share multiple overlapping features. We report a case of a patient with bipolar disorder on lithium who hiked to altitude and experienced symptoms that are shared by both conditions. We review the literature on lithium fluctuations under similar conditions showing that acute altitude exposure may elevate serum lithium levels and excess sweating may lower lithium levels, despite the prevailing thought that fluid loss concentrates serum lithium levels. We advise individualized testing of athletes' lithium levels in response to exercise and altitude, and we recommend physicians counsel their patients on ways to maintain therapeutic lithium levels during their athletic pursuits, including the importance of hydration and avoidance of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Further research is needed on lithium pharmacokinetics in conditions of exercise and altitude exposure.

A murine model of graft-vs-host disease after in utero hematopoietic cell transplantation.

PURPOSE: Graft-vs-host disease (GvHD) is a known complication of in utero bone marrow transplantation. However, GvHD has been difficult to study owing to frequent fetal demise. We describe the first consistent murine model of GvHD with postnatal survival after in utero hematopoietic cell transplantation. METHODS: A 50/50 mixture of bone marrow and splenocytes (10(6)) from 6-week-old C57/BL6 (H2-b) mice was injected intraperitoneally into Balb/c (H2-d) fetuses at e14 to 16. Live born pups were followed for clinical GvHD. Peripheral blood and hematopoietic organ chimerism was confirmed by flow cytometry and polymerase chain reaction. Organ samples were isolated for histology. RESULTS: Twenty-seven (75%) of 36 surviving pups displayed clinical GvHD by 2 weeks compared with 9 developmentally normal pups. Mean difference in weight between the 2 groups was 2.9 g at 7 days and 5.2 g at 14 days of life (P < .0001). All 27 pups with clinical GvHD and 1 normal-appearing pup had blood chimerism ranging from 1.5% to 65%. Eight of the 9 normal-appearing pups had 0% chimerism. Histologic analysis revealed findings of GvHD in liver, spleen, small intestine, and skin specimens of only chimeric pups. CONCLUSIONS: A consistent murine model of GvHD can be achieved after in utero transplantation of major histocompatibility complex-mismatched bone marrow and splenocytes. Future studies will use this model to examine approaches to prevent GvHD after in utero stem cell transplantation.