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 30,205 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Methadone maintenance has been evaluated since its development in 1964 as a medical response to the post-World War II heroin epidemic in New York City. The findings of major early studies have been consistent. Methadone maintenance reduces and/or eliminates the use of heroin, reduces the death rates and criminality associated with heroin use, and allows patients to improve their health and social productivity. In addition, enrollment in methadone maintenance has the potential toreduce the transmission of infectious diseases associated with heroin injection, such as hepatitis and HIV. The principal effects of methadone maintenance are to relieve narcotic craving, suppress the abstinence syndrome, and block the euphoric effects associated with heroin. A majority of patients require 80-120 mg/d of methadone, or more, to achieve these effects and require treatment for an indefinite period of time, since methadone maintenance is a corrective but not a curative treatment for heroin addiction. Lower doses may not be as effective or provide the blockade effect. Methadone maintenance has been found to be medically safe and nonsedating. It is also indicated for pregnant women addicted to heroin. Reviews issued by the Institute of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health have defined narcotic addiction as a chronic medical disorder and have claimed that methadone maintenance coupled with social services is the most effective treatment for this condition. These agencies recommend reducing governmental regulation to facilitate patients access to treatment. In addition, they recommend that the number of programs be expanded, and that new models of treatment be implemented,if the nationwide problem of addiction is to be brought under control. The National Institutes of Health also recommend that methadone maintenance be available to persons under legal supervision, such as probationers, parolees and the incarcerated. However, stigma and bias directed at the programs and the patients have hindered expansion and the effective delivery of services. Professional community leadership is necessary to educate the general public if these impediments are to be overcome.
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PMID:Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT): a review of historical and clinical issues. 1106 85

The 1999 Federal regulations extend the treatment options of methadone-maintained opioid-dependent patients from specialized clinics to office-based opioid therapy (OBOT). OBOT allows primary care physicians to coordinate methadone therapy in this group with ongoing medical care. This patient group tends to be poorly understood and underserved. Methadone maintenance therapy is the most widely known and well-researched treatment for opioid dependency. Goals of therapy are to prevent abstinence syndrome, reduce narcotic cravings and block the euphoric effects of illicit opioid use. In the first phase of methadone treatment, appropriately selected patients are tapered to adequate steady-state dosing. Once they are stabilized on a satisfactory dosage, it is often possible to address their other chronic medical and psychiatric conditions. The maintenance phase can be used as a long-term therapy until the patient demonstrates the qualities required for successful detoxification. Patients who abuse narcotics have an increased risk for human immunodeficiency virus infection, hepatitis, tuberculosis and other conditions contributing to increased morbidity and mortality. Short- or long-term pain management problems and surgical needs are also common concerns in opioid-dependent patients and are generally treatable in conjunction with methadone maintenance.
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PMID:Methadone therapy for opioid dependence. 1143 Apr 50

Cirrhosis due to chronic infection with hepatitis C virus remains by far the most common reason for liver transplantation in North America. Currently, parenteral use of street drugs is the most common means of acquiring hepatitis C. Methadone maintenance therapy is an accepted form of treatment for chronic opiate (eg, heroin) addiction and, not surprisingly, a significant proportion of methadone-treated patients have chronic hepatitis C. The feasibility of liver transplant candidacy in hepatitis patients who require methadone maintenance therapy is controversial, and some transplant centers require patients to withdraw from such therapy in order for the transplant process to move forward. Thus stable patients with end-stage cirrhosis who are receiving methadone maintenance are left in a most difficult situation: discontinue methadone and accept the side effects of withdrawal with the risk of recidivism to use of street opiates, an absolute contraindication for transplantation, or continue methadone therapy and risk exclusion from the transplant process. The issue of methadone replacement therapy in end-stage cirrhosis and the posttransplant literature on the subject are explored in this paper.
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PMID:Methadone maintenance therapy in liver transplantation. 2092 4

Despite a high prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) among drug users, HCV evaluation and treatment acceptance are extremely low among these patients when referred from drug treatment facilities for HCV management. We sought to increase HCV treatment effectiveness among patients from a methadone maintenance treatment program (MMTP) by maintaining continuity of care. We developed, instituted and retrospectively assessed the effectiveness of an integrated, co-localized care model in which an internist-addiction medicine specialist from MMTP was embedded in the hepatitis clinic. Methadone maintenance treatment program patients were referred, evaluated by the internist and hepatologist in hepatitis clinic and provided HCV treatment with integration between both sites. Of 401 evaluated patients, anti-HCV antibody was detected in 257, 86% of whom were older than 40 years. Hepatitis C virus RNA levels were measured in 222 patients, 65 of whom were aviremic. Of 157 patients with detectable HCV RNA, 125 were eligible for referral to the hepatitis clinic, 76 (61%) of whom accepted and adhered with the referral. Men engaged in MMTP <36 months were significantly less likely to be seen in hepatitis clinic than men in MMTP more than 36 months (odds ratio = 7.7; 95% confidence interval 2.6-22.9) or women. We evaluated liver histology in 63 patients, and 83% had moderate to advanced liver disease. Twenty-four patients initiated treatment with 19 completing and 13 (54%) achieving sustained response. In conclusion, integrated care between the MMTP and the hepatitis clinic improves adherence with HCV evaluation and treatment compared to standard referral practices.
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PMID:Integrated internist - addiction medicine - hepatology model for hepatitis C management for individuals on methadone maintenance. 2112 31

Heroin addiction is one of the most devastating and expensive of public health problems. The most effective treatment is opioid replacement therapy. Replacement of heroin, a short-acting euphoriant with methadone or other opioids that have significantly longer duration of action provides a number of therapeutic benefits. Opioid detoxification has a role in both preventing acute withdrawal and maintaining long-term abstinence. Opioid-based detoxification is based on the principle of cross-tolerance, in which one opioid is replaced with another one that is slowly tapered. For the treatment of heroin addicts a wide range of psychosocial and pharmacotherapeutic treatments are available; of these, methadone maintenance therapy has the most evidence of benefit. Methadone maintenance reduces and/or eliminates the use of heroin, reduces the death rate and criminality associated with heroin use, and allows patients to improve their health and social productivity. In addition, enrollment in methadone maintenance has the potential to reduce the transmission of infectious diseases associated with heroin injection, such as hepatitis and HIV. The principal effects of methadone maintenance are to relieve narcotic craving, suppress the abstinence syndrome, and block the euphoric effects associated with heroin. There is growing interest in expanding treatment into primary care, allowing opioid addiction to be managed like other chronic illnesses. Buprenorphine which is a long-acting partial agonist was also approved as pharmacotherapy for opioid dependence. Opioid antagonists can reduce heroin self-administration and opioid craving in detoxified addicts. Naltrexone, which is a long-acting competitive antagonist at the opioid receptors, blocks the subjective and objective responses produced by intravenous opioids. Naltrexone is employed to accelerate opioid detoxification by displacing heroin and as a maintenance agent for detoxified formerly heroin-dependent patients who want to remain opioid-free.
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PMID:[Therapy in heroin addiction]. 2534 42

Methadone maintenance therapy is widely accepted form of substitution therapy in people with Opioid dependent client. It is a kind of harm reduction strategy which prevents the spread of HIV and hepatitis among injecting drug users. It also improves quality of life and help decrease crime and other social issues. The program has been in Nepal for few years. The clients are increasing more each day and the demand for the program is also increasing. There is an urgent need of scaling-up the program in Nepal to address the increasing number of clients and unreached clients. This is an attempt to assess qualitatively the methadone maintenance therapy program in Nepal to generate evidences as a support to existing programs and to scale up the program in unreached population. The qualitative study revealed that the clients had adequate knowledge on the program and the program is quite satisfactory. However, they have to wait for a long to get enrollment in the program, there is no counseling session and they were more concern about the quality of the drug. Despite many lacunae, the participants found the program very useful in terms of developing good relation with family members, decreasing the necessity of money, being able to attend social functions, health and economic benefits, time saving, easily getting job. On the other hand, they were experiencing adverse effect such as decreasing sexual performance, dental caries, nausea, social stigma due to misuse of the program by some clients which are not properly addressed by the program. The program can be improved by making it priority problem at national level by the government, improving it as one stop shopping such as providing counseling, medicine and skill development program at one place.
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PMID:A qualitative assessment of methadone maintenance therapy program in Nepal: evidence to scaling up at national level. 2579 4