Recent information on opioid susbstitution treatments

It is estimated that 120 000 people were being treated with opioid susbstitution treatment (OST) in 2007, with a marked predominance of buprenorphine, which made up 80% of the total (a specific French feature). 

Almost 15 years after they were first marketed, the impact of OST in people with opiate dependency is clearly extremely positive, but cases of misuse have also occurred, making it necessary to monitor the prescription of these substances.

It was in this context that co-operation between CNAMTS and the OFDT was set up. The study described here is the third part of this work. 

This new study is based, for the first time, on the whole country rather than regional sites, from two representative samples of beneficiaries of the general scheme of French health insurance selected at random for the years 2006 and 2007. 

It sets out to describe both the methods of use of OST over these two years (levels of use, therapeutic associations) and also their intended uses (therapeutic or misuse), particularly from the length of treatments, and describes any abuse or misuse encountered.