Accessible online at: http://BioMedNet.com/karger A consensus panel convened by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) today strongly recommended a broader access to methadone maintenance treatment programs for people who are addicted to heroin or other opiate drugs and that the Federal and State regulations and other barriers impeding this access be eliminated. Many people believe that opiate...

Background: Methadone maintenance has received little scientific attention regarding neurocognitive effects. This study is aimed to assess the neuropsychological performance of methadone maintenance patients (MMP) compared to those healthy controls. Methods: Thirty-five MMP and 35 healthy controls, matched for age, gender, education and employment status, examined on a battery of tests aimed at...

The escalating problem of opiate dependence in Malaysia and the limitations of regimental approach of forced admission to rehabilitation centres had triggered the government to expand the methadone maintenance therapy to become a national programme. This study aimed to evaluate the short-term outcomes of the Methadone Maintenance Therapy programme in one of the busiest hospital in east coast Ma...

AIM The injection of non-sterile methadone designed for oral consumption is associated with serious health risks. There is only a small number of studies on this topic, with divergent results. The main aim of the present study was to obtain data on the frequency of methadone injecting in a state out-patient clinic specialised in substance use disorders. METHODS Eighty patients in methadone ma...

AIMS To determine the cost-effectiveness of buprenorphine maintenance therapy for opiate addiction in the United States, particularly its effect on the HIV epidemic. DESIGN We developed a dynamic model to capture the effects of adding buprenorphine maintenance to the current opiate dependence treatment system. We evaluated incremental costs, including all health-care costs, and incremental ef...

This study a) compared the effects of buprenorphine versus methadone maintenance on benzodiazepine and alcohol use and b) evaluated the prognostic significance of gender and psychopathology and their interaction with maintenance treatment. Eighty male and 36 female patients were randomly assigned to daily sublingual buprenorphine (4 or 12 mg) or oral methadone (20 or 65 mg). Maintenance medicat...