tion was removed in 1976; physicians with appropriate Drug Enforcement Agency registration may now prescribe methadone for analgesia.3 The unique pharmaco kinetic and pharmacodynamic characteristics of methadone make it a valuable option for the management of chronic pain both as a first-line agent and as a replacement opioid.1,4 Even though methadone may be administered by several routes––oral...

Background. Methadone has been a stalwart pharmacologic option for the management of opioid drug dependence for many years. It substitutes for opioid agonists and possesses certain pharmacokinetic properties that confer characteristics preferable to those of other opioids for this application. Methadone is likewise used as an option for the treatment of pain, particularly chronic pain. It has a...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether supervised medical prescription of heroin can successfully treat addicts who do not sufficiently benefit from methadone maintenance treatment. DESIGN Two open label randomised controlled trials. SETTING Methadone maintenance programmes in six cities in the Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS 549 heroin addicts. INTERVENTIONS Inhalable heroin (n = 375) or injectable ...

BACKGROUND Empirical evidence is needed to guide adequate postpartum pain relief of methadone and buprenorphine stabilized patients. OBJECTIVES To first determine the adequacy of pain control using non-opioid and opioid medication in participants stabilized on buprenorphine or methadone before a vaginal delivery. Second, to compare the amount of non-opioid and opioid medication needed for ade...

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease characterized by inflammation of pancreatic islets and destruction of beta cells by the immune system. Opioids have been shown to modulate a number of immune functions, including T helper 1 (Th1) and T helper 2 (Th2) cytokines. The immunosuppressive effect of long-term administration of opioids has been demonstrated both in animal models and humans. The ...

Methadone and buprenorphine are widely used for treating people with opioid dependence, including pregnant women. Prenatal exposure to opioids has devastating effects on the development of human fetuses and may induce long-term physical and neurobehavioral changes during postnatal maturation. This study aimed at comparing the behavioral outcomes of young rats prenatally exposed to buprenorphine...

OBJECTIVES This study determined the cost-effectiveness of expanding methadone maintenance treatment for heroin addiction, particularly its effect on the HIV epidemic. METHODS We developed a dynamic epidemic model to study the effects of increased methadone maintenance capacity on health care costs and survival, measured as quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). We considered communities with H...

BACKGROUND Methadone is commonly administered for chronic pain relief and treatment of opioid dependence. Concurrent with its increased consumption, toxicities and fatalities have increased. One of the adverse effects of opioid analgesics, including methadone, is that of nephrotoxicity. Opioids can have an effect on renal function through several different mechanisms. METHODS We searched comm...

METHADONE 17 Introduction 17 Pharmacology of methadone 17 Chemical characteristics 17 Pharmacodynamics 17 Pharmacokinetics 18 Drug interactions 19 References 22 Efficacy of Methadone in Clinical Studies 24 Figure 1. Consort – like report of Eligible Papers. 25 Summary of data for Efficacy (Table 1, Appendix 1). 26 Search Method 26 Systematic Review (Table 3, Appendix 1). 28 Retrospective Studie...

The majority of opiate-dependent clients entering substance abuse treatment are referred to "drug-free" (non-methadone) modalities. Given the known challenges of treating these clients in drug-free settings relative to the documented effectiveness of methadone maintenance, these analyses investigate the availability of various clinical and wraparound services for this population among a US samp...