Methadone Overdose Deaths Rise With Increased Prescribing for Pain.
Methadone overdose deaths rise with increased prescribing for pain.
Filed under: Methadone Treatment
JAMA. 2012 Aug 22; 308(8): 749-50
Kuehn BM
Pharmacogenetic Randomized Trial for Cocaine Abuse: Disulfiram and Dopamine ?-Hydroxylase.
Filed under: Methadone Treatment
Biol Psychiatry. 2012 Aug 17;
Kosten TR, Wu G, Huang W, Harding MJ, Hamon SC, Lappalainen J, Nielsen DA
BACKGROUND: Disulfiram has been an effective cocaine addiction pharmacotherapy, and one of its possible mechanisms of efficacy is through copper chelation and inhibition of an enzyme involved in catecholamine metabolism, dopamine ?-hydroxylase (D?H), which converts dopamine to norepinephrine. A variant in the gene encoding D?H leads to reduced D?H activity, and as such, disulfiram might not be an effective treatment of cocaine dependence for individuals with this variant. This study explored that potential matching. METHODS: Seventy-four cocaine- and opioid-codependent (DSM-V) subjects were stabilized on methadone for 2 weeks and subsequently randomized into disulfiram (250 mg/day, n = 34) and placebo groups (n = 40) for 10 weeks. We genotyped the DBH gene polymorphism, -1021C/T (rs1611115), that reduces D?H enzyme levels and evaluated its role for increasing cocaine free urines with disulfiram. RESULTS: With repeated measures analysis of variance, corrected for population structure, disulfiram pharmacotherapy reduced cocaine-positive urines from 80% to 62% (p = .0001), and this disulfiram efficacy differed by DBH genotype group. Patients with the normal D?H level genotype dropped from 84% to 56% on disulfiram (p = .0001), whereas those with the low DBH level genotype showed no disulfiram effect. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates that the DBH genotype of a patient could be used to identify a subset of individuals for which disulfiram treatment might be an effective pharmacotherapy for cocaine dependence.
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Malaysian Mosque Offers Methadone Treatment to IV Drug Users (Al-Jazeera English TV) – Malaysian AIDS Council Red Ribbon Media Awards 2012 Nominee, Outstanding Achievement in Broadcast Media. Florence Looi (Reporter) & Brian Donald (Producer). Date of broadcast: 1 December 2011.
Methadone clinic opens along Susquehanna Trail near Watsontown
Filed under: Methadone Treatment
WATSONTOWN — An outpatient methadone treatment center with a license to treat 105 opiate addicts has quietly opened in Northumberland County, two years after protests derailed plans for a similar facility in a Union County industrial park seven miles …
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