background : methadone is considered as a good choice for maintenance treatment program (mmtp) in opioid addicted individuals. qt interval prolongation was reported previously in methadone chronic usersespecially in high dose prescription. qt-interval prolongation predisposes patients to lethal dysrhythmia. this is a report of corrected qt(qtc) prolongation due to acute methadone poisoning. to ...

patients and methods this was a historical cohort study. a total of 1396 patients admitted between march 2011 and march 2012 in 16 mmt clinics (13 private and 3 state clinics) in rafsanjan, entered the study and their retention rate was examined for one year. the patients’ data abstracted from their medical records using checklists and collected by clinics’ staff. data analyses were performed u...

conclusions the major risk factor of hcv infection was injection drug use. the patient’s awareness of his or her hcv status had a minor effect in reduction of illicit drug use and improvement in mmt retention. therefore, adequate counseling is necessary for drug users in mmt clinics in xi’an. background hepatitis c virus (hcv) infection rates in drug users vary among different regions of china....

conclusions the mmt program is an effective intervention to prevent hcv infection transmission, although it is essential to compare its effectiveness with other interventions before implementing it in nationwide. results of the 259 participants, 98.4% (255) were men, the mean age ± sd was 33.1 ± 7.58 years and hcv prevalence was 50%. the studied idus reported lower rate of risky injecting and s...

addiction to the illicit and prescribed use of opiate is an alarming public health issue. studies on addictive disorders have demonstrated severe nutritional deficiencies in opiate abusers with behavioral, physiological and cognitive symptoms. opiate addiction is also link with a significant number of diseases including human immunodeficiency virus (hiv), hepatitis c virus (hcv) and other blood...

Background: This study aimed to investigate the initial dosage of methadone and factors affecting it in maintenance therapy.Methods: This cross-sectional, descriptive-analytic study was conducted on 157 individuals referring to a methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) clinic. The initial dosage of methadone was 20-45 mg which was adjusted during the treatment based on each patient's evaluation. Th...

OBJECTIVE Both methadone and buprenorphine are effective therapy for heroin dependence. Efficacy is best documented for methadone maintenance therapy, but safety concerns limit its use. Buprenorphine offers lower overdose risk and improved access, but efficacy may be lower. The authors compared adaptive, buprenorphine-based stepped care to optimal methadone maintenance treatment. METHOD This ...

BACKGROUND Buprenorphine is a partial agonist at the mu-opioid receptor that has been proposed as an alternative to traditional full agonist maintenance therapy for the treatment of opioid addiction. We report on a clinical trial in which the relative safety and efficacy of long-term fixed-dose buprenorphine maintenance was examined in comparison to low- and high-dose methadone maintenance. M...