Buprenorphine With Bupivacaine for Intraoral Nerve Blocks to Provide Postoperative Analgesia in Outpatients After Minor Oral Surgery

The addition of buprenorphine to the local anesthetic used for intraoral nerve blocks in the present study provided a 3-fold increase in the duration of postoperative analgesia, with complete analgesia persisting 30 hours beyond the duration provided by the local anesthetic alone in 75% of patients. This practice can be of particular benefit to patients undergoing minor oral surgery by providing prolonged analgesia after discharge from the hospital.