Perioperative Management of Patients on Maintenance Medication for Addiction Treatment: The Development of an Institutional Guideline

With a brief summary of selected literature identified by a multidisciplinary panel of subject matter experts, the authors share their experience with the development of an institutional perioperative pain management guideline for patients on maintenance medication for addiction treatment (MAT), stressing the importance of perioperative continuation of opioid agonists such as methadone and partial agonists such as buprenorphine; and the discontinuation of opioid antagonists, such as naltrexone. The authors' protocol is appended as an example of a standardized approach to perioperative management of patients on MAT.