BACKGROUND Opioid substitution treatment (OST) is not uniformly provided in all prisons as recommended by international guidelines. The Swiss prison of Champ-Dollon in Geneva is an exception, where OST has been available for the last 20 years. The aims of this study were to describe the OST programme in this pretrial prison setting, and the patients involved. METHODS We reviewed health record...

Drug abuse is the use of drugs in amounts or by methods that harmful for health. disorders (DUD) are associated with a range adverse health outcomes including increased mortality rates [1, 2]. For example, patients opioid substitution treatment (OST) shown to have significantly higher non-drug-related Cancer than general population [3, 4]. According American Society, substance and addiction mak...

When intrathecal and epidural opioids are administered, pruritus occurs as an unwanted and troublesome side effect. The reported incidence varies between 30% and 100%. The exact mechanisms of neuraxial opioid-induced pruritus remain unclear. Postulated mechanisms include the presence of an "itch center" in the central nervous system, medullary dorsal horn activation, and antagonism of inhibitor...

Substance use of disorders--including alcohol, cocaine, and opiod dependencies--are common in HIV-infected patients. Untreated substance use disorders result in poor HIV disease treatment outcomes; however, several new treatment strategies have emerged in recent years. Combined medication and counseling therapies are effective for alcohol and opioid dependencies, and counseling treatments are e...

BACKGROUND In many countries, the opioid agonists, buprenorphine and methadone, are licensed for maintenance treatment of opioid dependence. Many short-term studies have been performed, but little is known about long-term effects. Therefore, this study described over 6 years (1) mortality, retention and abstinence rates and (2) changes in concomitant drug use and somatic and mental health. ME...

BACKGROUND Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) patients have an increased rate of chronic pain, particularly peripheral neuropathy. This disease burden causes considerable disability and negatively affects quality of life. Pain is undertreated and more complex to manage in these patients for a number of reasons, including complex anti-retroviral drug regimens, higher risks of side effects, and h...

OBJECTIVE Aims of this consensus panel were to determine (1) an optimal symptom-based method for assessing opioid-induced constipation in clinical practice and (2) a threshold of symptom severity to prompt consideration of prescription therapy. METHODS A multidisciplinary panel of 10 experts with extensive knowledge/experience with opioid-associated adverse events convened to discuss the lite...

BACKGROUND Controlling pain in cancer patients is often inadequate. A recent multicenter study of patients with metastatic disease who were experiencing pain reported that 36% still had pain severe enough to compromise their daily function. METHODS The author draws on his experiences as well as those of others to review general guidelines and provide specific recommendations for cancer pain m...

Objective To compare the risk for all cause and overdose mortality in people with opioid dependence during and after substitution treatment with methadone or buprenorphine and to characterise trends in risk of mortality after initiation and cessation of treatment.Design Systematic review and meta-analysis.Data sources Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, and LILACS to September 2016.Study selection Prosp...