Articles and Reports
Dr. Roger Weiss, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Principal Investigator for the Prescription Opioid Addiction Treatment Study of the National Institute on Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network comments on his recent study:
Adjunctive Counseling During Brief and Extended Buprenorphine-Naloxone Treatment for Prescription Opioid Dependence
A 2- Phase Randomized Controlled Trial
"I think that the importance of this study is the fact that the prevalence rate of dependence on prescription opioid drugs has risen dramatically in recent years, but virtually all treatment outcome studies for opioid dependence have thus far included either exclusively or primarily patients using heroin. Despite the fact that patients in the Prescription Opioid Addiction Treatment Study had characteristics that are normally associated with good treatment outcomes (largely employed, relatively few years of opioid use, relatively little other drug use), nearly all of the study patients returned to opioid use after being tapered from opioids. In contrast, approximately half did well while taking buprenorphine-naloxone and receiving weekly medical management visits. This study starkly illustrates the benefit of buprenorphine-naloxone treatment with this population".
Roger D. Weiss, M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School Chief, Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse McLean Hospital
Citation:
Adjunctive Counseling During Brief and Extended Buprenorphine-Naloxone Treatment for Prescription Opioid Dependence
