Monthly Injection Prevents Opioid Addiction
Dr. Evgeny Krupitsky and colleagues, of St. Petersburg Bekhterev Psychoneurological Research Institute in Russia, have recently reported that once a month injections of the drug naltrexone helped opioid addicts overcome their addiction. These results, published in the Lancet, come months after the FDA approved the use of long-acting naltrexone, or Vivtrol to treat opioid addiction.
Opioids, also known as narcotics, are the most powerful painkillers available. They include both prescription and illegal drugs such as codeine, hydrocodeine, morphine, oxycodone, and heroin.
Opioid addiction is a real dangerous problem that is on the rise in the US. According to the federal government’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health, each year roughly 2 million people 12 years or older start abusing opioids by taking them for non-medical purposes.
While most people require medical help to overcome opioid addiction, only about one-quarter of those who become addicted to opioids actually go to a treatment center, and it’s said that it takes an opioid abuser an average of 14 years to admit the abuse and check themselves into a clinic.
Treating opioid addiction is particularly difficult. Once the patient stops taking the drugs, they experience opioid withdrawal symptoms that are comparable to a bad case of the flu. Opioid withdrawal symptoms include chills, sweating, muscle ache, insomnia, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting. Even if a person manages to “kick the habit,” there is an 85% chance that they will relapse at 1 year.
Dr. Krupitsky led a 24-week clinical trial to study the safety and effectiveness of naltrexone in Russian patients with opioid addiction. Study coordinators enrolled 250 trial volunteers who were 18 years of age or older and had been addicted to heroin for approximately ten years. Each study volunteer had up to 30 days of an inpatient detoxification program and had not used heroin for seven days.
Participants were randomly assigned to receive either 380 mg of long-acting naltrexone, injected once a month for six months, or placebo. In addition, patients received 12 biweekly counseling sessions. Regular urine tests were used to determine whether volunteers stayed drug free.
Nearly 50% of the naltrexone patients did not complete the study. Sixty-two percent of the patients in the placebo group also did not finish the full 24-week clinical trial.
Patients that received naltrexone appeared to take 2.5 times longer to relapse compared to those taking placebo (if they relapsed at all). The group treated with naltrexone also saw a greater decrease in drug cravings compared to the group that received placebo.
These results are considered quite promising, and physicians are eager to learn more about how best to use naltroxene to improve opioid addiction cure rates. In fact there are more than 60 additional clinical trials actively recruiting study volunteers to help study the use of naltroxene. If you’re interested in finding out more about these trials, please visit our website at www.paidclinicaltrials.org.
Venita Gresham Watson, PhD
Tags: naltrexone, naltrexone for addiction, naltrexone injection, naltrexone medication, naltrexone side effects
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