Opioid Addiction Treatments Face Off in US Trial

CHICAGO (AP) — The first U.S. study to compare two treatments for opioid addiction finds a monthly shot works as well as a daily drug to prevent relapse. The shot requires days of detox first and that proved to be a stumbling block for many. For those who made it past that hurdle, the shot Vivitrol worked about the same as an older treatment, Suboxone. Both drugs had high relapse rates and there were overdoses, including fatal ones, in the experiment in 570 adults. The study , published Tuesday in the journal Lancet, is the first to compare the two drugs in the United States, where an opioid addiction epidemic has doctors and policymakers deeply divided over treatment strategies. Many addiction treatment programs don't offer either medication, or only one of them. "Let's not keep arguing about the exact batting averages of these two things," and make them more available, said study co-author Dr. Joshua Lee of New York University School of Medicine. President Donald Trump recently declared the crisis a national public health emergency. Overdoses, most involving prescription painkillers and other opioids, killed 64,000 people in the United States last year. "Addiction medicine physicians are hungry to get data, especially from head-to-head comparisons like this one," said Dr. Joseph Garbely of Pennsylvania-based Caron Treatment Centers, who wasn't involved in the research. A smaller Norwegian study, published last month, also found the two medications work...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Patient Care News Source Type: news