heroin can reduce their drug use up to 0% with a drug more convenient than the standard treatment, according to a report in Journal tomorrow of the American Medical Association . The researchers hope that the discovery will encourage more clinics to try the treatment - it halved the number of visits required -. And to speed up approval of the drug, which has languished in many state regulators
For more than 2 decades, those addicted to opioid drugs such as heroin were treated methadone, which binds to receptors in the brain that are stimulated by opioids, but does not give up. However, many patients received doses that were too small and relapsed says George Bigelow, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University. When another compound called acetate levomethadyl or LAAM was approved by the FDA in 1993, Bigelow and his colleagues decided to see if higher doses of LAAM could prevent recidivism seen with methadone.
The team enrolled 180 addicts who came to their clinic seeking treatment. A third received doses of 25 milligrams of LAAM, another third to 50 mg, 100 mg and others; neither doctors nor patients knew the strength pills. Within a week, patients receiving the higher dose significantly reduced drug use. At the end of the trial of 17 weeks, patients reported a decrease of 0% from 29 days per month to 2.5 days. Those on the lowest dose reduced to 6 days per month. Both reports were confirmed by urine tests.
Because LAAM should be taken only three times a week rather than daily as methadone, it makes it more convenient treatment, increasing the chance that addicts stick to a treatment regimen. Bigelow also hope that more states will approve LAAM and loosen its regulations; now she, like methadone, is only available in clinical drug approved specifically mainly on fears that addicts can sell the drug. "There is no other medical condition for which these wonderfully effective drugs are so hard to get," he said.
Other experts also hope to see LAAM finding its way into more clinical. "This kind of study is important for strengthening the need to give the maximum effective dose," said Alan Lesher, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the study. "Once you do, the payoff is huge."
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