Buprenorphine is important for the treatment of opioid use disorder, but pediatric exposure can result in serious adverse outcomes, according to a recent study. In order to investigate buprenorphine exposures among children and adolescents aged ≤19 years in the US, researchers analyzed data from calls to US poison control centers for 2007–2016 from the National Poison Data System. They found:

• From 2007 to 2016, there were 11,275 children and adolescents aged ≤19 years exposed to buprenorphine reported to US poison control centers.
• Most exposures were among children aged <6 years (86.1%), unintentional (89.2%), and to a single substance (97.3%).
• For single-substance exposures, children aged <6 years had greater odds of hospital admission and of serious medical outcome than adolescents 13 to 19 years old.
• Adolescents accounted for 11.1% of exposures; 77.1% were intentional (including 12.0% suspected suicide), and 27.7% involved multiple substances.
• Among adolescents, the odds of hospital admission and a serious medical outcome were higher for multiple-substance exposures than single-substance exposures.