BACKGROUND Methadone may cause respiratory depression and fatalities. Concomitant use of benzodiazepines in methadone-treated patients for chronic pain or as maintenance therapy for opiate abuse is common. However, the exact contribution of benzodiazepines to methadone-induced respiratory toxicity remains debatable. METHODS We investigated the respiratory effects of the combination diazepam (...

Breastfeeding among methadone-maintained women is frequently challenged because of unclear guidelines regarding this practice. Previous research has confirmed that concentrations of methadone in breastmilk in the neonatal period are low. Currently unknown are the concentrations of methadone in breastmilk among women who breastfeed for longer periods of time. The purpose of this research is to e...

A sample of 312 heroin users was interviewed on their injection of methadone syrup. Methadone injecting was widespread, with 52% of subjects having injected methadone syrup, 29% in the preceding six months. Males and females were equally likely to report methadone injecting. Forty per cent of current methadone injectors reported weekly or more frequent methadone injecting over the preceding six...

BACKGROUND Metabolism and clearance of racemic methadone are stereoselective and highly variable, yet the mechanism remains largely unknown. Initial in vitro studies attributed methadone metabolism to cytochrome P4503A4 (CYP3A4). CYP3A4 was also assumed responsible for methadone clearance in vivo. Nevertheless, recent clinical data do not support a primary role for CYP3A4 and suggest that CYP2B...

Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is commonly used for controlling opioid dependence, preventing withdrawal symptoms, and improving the quality of life of heroin-dependent patients. A steady-state plasma concentration of methadone enantiomers, a measure of methadone metabolism, is an index of treatment response and efficacy of MMT. Although the methadone metabolism pathway has been partiall...

CONTEXT Effective alternatives to long waiting lists for entry into methadone hydrochloride maintenance treatment are needed to reduce the complications of continuing heroin dependence and to increase methadone treatment entry. OBJECTIVE To compare the effectiveness of interim methadone maintenance with that of the usual waiting list condition in facilitating methadone treatment entry and red...

We studied the effects of the commonly used -opioid receptor agonists morphine, oxycodone, methadone and the enantiomers of methadone in thermal and mechanical models of acute pain and in the spinal nerve ligation model of neuropathic pain in rats. Subcutaneous administration of morphine, oxycodone, and methadone produced a dose-dependent antinociceptive effect in the tail flick, hotplate, and ...

Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is the major tapering therapy for morphine addictive patients. There have gender differences reported in response to MMT. This study discovered that the estrogen-response element single nucleotide polymorphism (ERE-SNP; rs16974799, C/T) of cytochrome 2B6 gene (cyp2b6; methadone catabolic enzyme) responded differently to MMT dosing. Oestradiol was associated...

The outstanding properties of methadone are its analgesic activity, its efficacy by oral route, its extended duration of action in suppressing of withdrawal symptoms in physically dependent individuals, and its tendency to show persistent effects with repeated administration. The analgesic activity of methadone, a racemate, is almost entirely the result of its R-methadone content. Respiratory d...

BACKGROUND Despite evidence of the effectiveness of injectable opioid treatment compared with oral methadone for chronic heroin addiction, the additional cost of injectable treatment is considerable, and cost-effectiveness uncertain. AIMS To compare the cost-effectiveness of supervised injectable heroin and injectable methadone with optimised oral methadone for chronic refractory heroin addic...