Urinary Buprenorphine, Norbuprenorphine and Naloxone Concentrations and Ratios: Review and Potential Clinical...

Treatment with medications for opioid use disorder such as buprenorphine improves patient morbidity and mortality as well as treatment adherence, an important component of patient care. Buprenorphine is combined with naloxone to reduce misuse; and, when taken sublingually, naloxone is poorly absorbed. Urine testing for buprenorphine is a common way to monitor adherence. Some patients who want to appear adherent may directly tamper with their urine by adding buprenorphine to their urine to allow for the detection without ingestion. Practitioners may rely upon the concentration of buprenorphine and the metabolite, norbuprenorphine, and utilize the ratio of metabolite to parent compound (norbuprenorphine:buprenorphine - N:B ratio) to discern possible evidence of tampering; however, there remains debate as to what specific ratio may signify this practice. Testing for naloxone may also help determine if urine tampering occurred as only low naloxone concentrations are found in the urine when taken by a sublingual route.

To determine a reliable N:B ratio that may be used to identify possible urine tampering by adding parent drug directly to urine, we examined 136,605 urine samples for quantitative concentrations of buprenorphine and norbuprenorphine by LC-MS/MS performed at a commercial laboratory. After identifying abnormal ratios (<0.02), we then compared them with naloxone concentrations and specimen validity testing, other markers that may coincide with specimen tampering of this type.

Correlating urinary buprenorphine and norbuprenorphine concentrations, we found 2 distinct patient populations, which could be distinguished by N:B ratios ranging from 0.01 to 0.2. In addition, while the distribution of urine naloxone concentrations itself did not demonstrate distinct populations, naloxone was able to further flag potential tampered specimens when combined with N:B ratios. Abnormal specimen validity testing was additionally found more commonly in cases with N:B ratios <0.02.

This comprehensive study compared N:B ratios with naloxone concentrations and specimen validity testing. This study suggests that a N:B ratio of <0.02 in concert with high naloxone concentrations (>1000 ng/ml) can help to identify potential cases of tampered urine samples.