Creating a Palliative Care Clinic for Patients with Cancer Pain and Substance Use Disorder

Opioids are a first-line treatment for severe cancer pain. However, clinicians may be reluctant to prescribe opioids for patients with concurrent substance use disorders (SUD) or clinical concerns about non-prescribed substance use.

Patient volume, 60-day retention rate, and use of sublingual buprenorphine to treat opioid use disorder.

We created the Palliative Harm Reduction and Resiliency Clinic, a palliative care clinic founded on harm reduction principles and including formal collaboration with addiction psychiatry.

During the first 18 months, patient volume increased steadily; 70% of patients had at least one subsequent visit within 60 days of the initial appointment; and buprenorphine was prescribed for 55% of patients with opioid use disorder.

The formal collaboration with addiction psychiatry and the integration of harm reduction principles and practices into ambulatory palliative care improved our ability to provide treatment to a previously underserved patient population with high symptom burden.