[Oral and maxillofacial cancer pain therapy with sublingual buprenorphine.].

We evaluated the efficiency of sublingual buprenorphine (Temgesic((R)) sublingual, Boehringer Mannheim GmbH) in a controlled study over a minimum of 4 weeks in 15 patients with extreme cancer pain. The tumors included 8 locoregional carcinoma recurrences in the head and neck region, 4 distant metastases of primary squamous cell carcinoma in the oral and maxillo-facial region, 1 tumor after irradiation, 1 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and 1 primarily non-operable carcinoma. Pain intensity was continually documented by means of a visual analogue scale (VAS) by the patients themselves. In 14 of 15 the patients it was possible to reduce pain rapidly to one fifth the original intensity with a comparatively low dosage of 0.60 mg buprenorphine (median) daily.