Methadone maintenance treatment has been shown in many studies to reduce mortality and morbidity among heroin users. However, there has been concern that widespread methadone prescribing will lead conversely to an increase in methadone-related deaths. This study in Sheffield shows no increase in methadone-related mortality over a two-year period, during which 400 untreated patients were recruit...

INTRODUCTION The use of methadone as an analgesic is on the increase, but it is widely recognized that the goal of predictable and reproducible dosing is confounded by considerable variability in methadone pharmacokinetics, and unpredictable side effects that include sedation, respiratory depression and cardiac arrhythmias. The mechanisms underlying these unpredictable effects are frequently un...

The main purpose of this research was to determine the influence a therapeutic dose an opioid drug (methadone) on selected auditory functions in patients addicted opioids (recognition ICD-10; F11) and undergoing substitution therapy. Various hearing tests were used – pure tone audiometry, impedance otoacoustic emission measurement, speech noise test two sessions, before after methadone intake. ...

PURPOSE The objectives of this analysis were to assess the role of methadone and related substances in death occurring, discussing methadone blood concentrations and the contribution of the autopsy to the accountability of methadone in the death process. METHOD We retrospectively analyzed all forensic cases positive for methadone from January 2000 to December 2010, in Montpellier and the regi...

BACKGROUND In France, methadone has historically been less accessible than buprenorphine. In 2008, a dry formulation (capsule) was introduced into the market, aimed in particular to improve methadone accessibility. OBJECTIVE To describe the impact (prevalence of use, patient profiles and compliance with requirements) of the dry methadone formulation in France. METHOD A retrospective cohort ...

BACKGROUND Opioid switching to methadone is reported frequently to improve pain control in patients with an unacceptable balance between pain control and side effects during treatment with first line opioids, but carries a risk of drug accumulation and respiratory depression. To justify this risk it is required that less risky treatments are tried beforehand and that a sufficiently large propor...

Morgan et al. report a number of important findings, but of greatest interest to providers of drug treatment services is probably that methadone-related deaths dramatically declined from 1997 onwards. Deaths per thousand methadone treatment patient-years varied little between 12 and 13/year between 1993 and 1997 but then plunged by three-quarters between 1997 and 2004 to a low of 3.1 deaths per...

Dr. Eamon Keenan The previous speaker has given a reasoned a balanced argument in favour of the use of methadone as an effective intervention in the treatment of opiate dependence syndrome. One interesting point to emerge and one that highlights the emotive nature of methadone treatment, is his justification of methadone maintenance on utilitarian moral grounds. That a medicinal product, with p...

Although the efficacy of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) in opioid dependence disorder has been well established, the influence of methadone pharmacokinetics in dose requirement and clinical outcome remains controversial. The aim of this study is to analyze methadone dosage in responder and nonresponder patients considering pharmacogenetic and pharmacokinetic factors that may contribute t...

Purpose: To review the literature on methadone deaths and propose evidencebased dosing guidelines. Methods: A literature search was conducted on overdose deaths during the induction phase. Data on methadone deaths from the Ontario coroner’s office, as well as prescribing guidelines from different countries and jurisdictions, were reviewed. The information was collectively considered and, using ...