Table 1.

Overview of how patients were assigned to treatments.

Step	Regular analgesic treatment	Randomly assigned to either:	Dose
1	No analgesics or paracetamol ≤ 1g/day	Paracetamol tablets	3 g/day
		Placebo tablets	Inactive placebo
2	Non-opioid analgesics/paracetamol > 1 g/day, and/or NSAID∗/or no analgesics – but with difficulty swallowing tablets Buprenorphine 5 mcg/h	Buprenorphine transdermal system	5 μg/h (maximum 10 μg/h)
		Placebo transdermal system	Inactive placebo

^∗Except low-dose acetylsalicylic acid.