Flumazenil is a specific benzodiazepine (BZD) antagonist which inhibits the effects of BZD agonists by competing for the receptor site in the central nervous system. It has completed clinical trials in the United States and received final approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for release in January 1992. Following intravenous injection, clinically apparent arousal usually occurs w...

BACKGROUND Primary care interventions that promote cessation of benzodiazepine (BZD) use in long-term users are effective at 1 year, but their efficacy at 3 years is uncertain. AIM To assess the 3-year efficacy of two primary care interventions delivered by GPs on cessation of BZD use in long-term users. DESIGN AND SETTING Multicentre, three-arm, cluster randomised, controlled trial, with r...

BACKGROUND As benzodiazepines (BZDs) have anxiolytic effects, it is expected that they influence the stress system. During short-term treatment, BZD use was found to suppress cortisol levels. However, little research has been done on the effects of long-term BZD administration on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. METHODS The association between long-term BZD use and cortisol leve...

OBJECTIVE Benzodiazepines (BZDs) are commonly used by chronic pain patients, despite limited evidence of any long-term benefits and concerns regarding adverse events and drug interactions, particularly in older patients. This article aims to: describe patterns of BZDs use; the demographic, physical, and mental health correlates of BZD use; and examine if negative health outcomes are associated ...

We conducted a retrospective case–control study to evaluate the association between the risk of benzodiazepine (BZD) use and epilepsy occurrence by using data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. We recruited 1065 participants who ages 20 years or older and newly diagnosed with epilepsy (International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification 345)...

The role of benzodiazepine derivatives (BZD) as a privileged scaffold that mimics beta-turn structures (Ripka et al. (1993) Tetrahedron 49:3593-3608) in peptide/protein recognition was reexamined in detail. Stable BZD ring conformers were determined with MM3, and experimental reverse-turn structures were extracted from the basis set of protein crystal structures previously defined by Ripka et a...

AIMS To evaluate the homogeneity of the elements of the Substance Dependence Syndrome (SDS) as applied to benzodiazepines (BZDs) by Rasch modelling. MEASUREMENTS The Rasch scaling model was applied to data obtained by administering the SCAN (Schedules for Clinical Assessments in Neuropsychiatry) substance dependence sections. Subsequently, Rasch-homogeneous sets of DSM-III-R and ICD-10 BZD de...

background: for treatment of severe alcohol withdrawal syndrome, high dose benzodiazepines (bzds) may cause delirium and over-sedation. phenobarbital (pbt) is a long-acting barbiturate effective for the treatment of alcohol withdrawal. given the potential benefits of pbt, we sought to investigate the effectiveness of pbt as adjunctive treatment for alcohol withdrawal. methods: this was a retros...

The identification of benzodiazepines (BZD) in biological fluids can be a challenging process. The large number of various BZD in pharmaceutical distribution, with similar core structures, and individual metabolic profiles all contribute to a complicated and time-consuming analysis. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the performance of four commercially available immunoassay urine...

Objective The aim of this study was to examine current practice patterns surrounding the management of alcohol withdrawal syndrome (AWS) in the Northeast region of the United States. Methods A survey questionnaire with several treatment options related to current practice in the management of AWS was developed. All hospitals with 100 beds or more located in the Northeast region were selected,...