BACKGROUND Methadone is a synthetic opioid that is widely used for the treatment of chronic pain. The association between methadone treatment and QT interval prolongation or which can lead to torsades de pointes has been confirmed with larger studies on high dose methadone. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of methadone on the QTc interval in patients, whether the daily dose of ...

AIMS According to Norwegian guidelines, patients who are in opioid-assisted rehabilitation programmes are permitted to drive a motor vehicle provided that certain requirements are met. The purpose of this study was to investigate apprehended drivers who had methadone in their blood at the time of apprehension and, further, the relationship between blood methadone concentration and impairment as...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have shown elevated rates of health-related harms among Aboriginal people who use injection drugs such as heroin. Methadone maintenance therapy is one of the most effective interventions to address the harms of heroin injection. We assessed the rate of methadone use in a cohort of opioid injection drug users in Vancouver and investigated whether methadone use was ass...

Methadone is a potent synthetic opioid analgesic best known in Australia as maintenance therapy for narcotic addicts. Acceptance of methadone in cancer pain management is limited by a poor understanding of its pharmacokinetics and confusion about dosage. Many opioid conversion charts underestimate the potency of methadone, resulting in the risk of toxicity. Methadone is a valuable addition to t...

We performed a double-blind placebo-controlled study of the effects of extradural administration of methadone 5 mg or saline, followed by bupivacaine, in 42 women in early labour. Motor block and pain scores were significantly less in the methadone group. The requirement for bupivacaine also was reduced by methadone, but this was not statistically significant. There were no troublesome side eff...

BACKGROUND Intravenous drug misuse, principally heroin, occurs primarily in the Greater Dublin area. Methadone maintenance treatment has been an important part of the response to opiate misuse in Dublin since 1992. AIMS To determine the number of opiate-related deaths in Dublin City and County during 1999, to establish the number of methadone-related deaths and determine the proportion of dea...

The aim of this study was to switch patients established on methadone opioid substitution therapy (OST) to morphine over 1 week. Subjects established on daily methadone OST (mean dose 60 mg/day) were switched to morphine slow-release capsules, dosed at 4× the previous total daily methadone dose, for 6 days, then given morphine syrup dosed q3h. All 27 subjects enrolled in this study completed th...

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...

Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT) is among the most widely studied treatments for opiate dependence with proven benefits for patients and society. When misused, however, methadone can also be lethal. The issue of methadone diversion is a major concern for all MMT programs. A potential source for such diversion is from those MMT patients who receive daily take home methadone doses. Using a r...

This paper describes a sensitive UPLC-MS/MS method for quantification of methadone and 2-ethylidene-1,5-dimethyl-3,3-diphenylpyrrolidine (EDDP) in single empty puparial case of Lucilia sericata. Larvae were reared on substrates spiked with different concentrations of methadone (0-4 μg/g). Methadone was quantified in puparia reared on high concentrated substrates (0.8-4 μg/g). The major metaboli...