BACKGROUND Methadone maintenance was the first widely used form of opioid replacement therapy developed to treat heroin dependence, and it remains the best-researched treatment for this problem. Despite the widespread use of methadone in maintenance treatment for opioid dependence in many countries, it is a controversial treatment whose effectiveness has been disputed. OBJECTIVES To evaluate ...

Background: Substance abusers are not able to withdraw drugs eternally despite the abundance of different treatments; therefore, withdrawal programs are not quite successful and notwithstanding all the successes of methadone maintenance therapy, there are some defects found in the manner this treatment is applied. Thus, this study was conducted to explore the experience of drug abusers regardin...

ôbjective: to investigate the pharmacokinetics (pk) and pk- pharmacodynamic (pd) relationship of methadone in a cohort of outpatients undergoing methadone maintenance treatment (mmt). methods: sixty male patients undergoing mmt with a mean ±sd methadone daily dosage of 58 ± 34 mg were enrolled in this study. â 5-ml blood sample was collected before the daily intake of methadone. âs a pd measure...

Introduction Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is an effective treatment for individuals with established opioid dependence. However, reviews of the literature reveal that MMT is not a standardised treatment, client outcomes vary and consumer ambivalence is common. In the international literature there has been an increasing emphasis on evaluating client outcomes during treatment and client...

background: methadone is considered a long-acting opioid agonist which is widely used in the treatment of drug addiction. it is believed that opioids can cause erectile dysfunction (ed) by inhibiting gonadotropin and testosterone release. this study is aimed at defining the possible effects of conservative treatment with methadone on erectile dysfunction in the addicts. methods: a total of 382 ...

background the increase in high-risk injections and unsafe sexual behaviors has led to increased hiv infection prevalence among intravenous drug users (idus). the high costs of hiv/aids care and low financial resources necessitate an economic evaluation to make the best decision for the control of hiv/aids. objectives this study was conducted to determine the cost-effectiveness of methadone mai...

BACKGROUND Methadone maintenance therapy is a treatment of choice for opiate addiction. Understanding opiate dependents' experiences of patients' treatment is a key to continue the treatment and can provide help to revise the standards of methadone centers and improve the quality of treatment. This study aimed to describe the essence and structure of opiate dependents' experiences with methadon...

BACKGROUND Methadone maintenance treatment is the most widely prescribed treatment for opiate dependence with proven benefits for patients. In naïve users or in case of recreational misuse, methadone can be a source of potentially lethal intoxications, resulting in fatal overdoses. A few cases of infantile intoxications have been described in the literature, some of which resulted in death. Now...

OBJECTIVE The activity of cytochrome P-450 enzyme 2D6 (CYP2D6) could be related to heroin-dependent patient satisfaction with methadone maintenance treatment. We sought to compare satisfaction with the usual methadone treatment in patients who are ultrarapid, extensive or poor metabolizers, according to CYP2D6 genotyping. METHODS Two hundred and five heroin-dependent patients filled out the V...