Background: To assess the long-term course of the feasibility and safety of orally administered heroin [diacetylmorphine (DAM)] tablets in substitution treatment of severely addicted opioid users.
Design: Open-label, prospective cohort study with 2 non-randomly assigned treatment arms: DAM tablets only (n = 128) or DAM tablets combined with injected DAM and/or other opioids (n = 237). The average duration of the observation period was 62 months. Study endpoints were the time to discharge from treatment and the number of serious adverse events.
Results: Both patient groups had a higher than 70% retention rate after the first 48 months of treatment, with similar long-term retention rates (after 8 years both groups had retention over 50%). The physician-verified rate of serious adverse events was 0.01 events per application year among the exclusively oral substitution group (intention-to-treat analysis) during the last year of observation, and 0.005 events per application year in the other group.
Conclusions: Because of their feasibility and safety over years, DAM tablets may be a valuable long-term therapeutic alternative. / Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:27490 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Frick, Ulrich, Rehm, Jürgen, Zullino, Daniele, Fernando, Manrique, Wiesbeck, Gerhard, Ammann, Jeannine, Uchtenhagen, Ambros |
| Publisher | Karger |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Source | Eur Addict Res 2010;16:131–138, ISSN: 1022-6877 |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 10.1159/000313335 |
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