Treatment

Dr. Thomas Kosten Q & A: Vaccines To Treat Addiction

In this article and accompanying podcast, Dr. Thomas Kosten discusses the idea and current status of antidrug vaccines to treat substance use and addiction.

Distinct Challenges Affect Women’s HIV Treatment Outcomes After Jail

Women who are infected with HIV and are transitioning back to communities after serving jail time are less likely than their male counterparts to have a regular HIV care provider, to take and regularly adhere to an HIV medication regimen, and to have suppression of the virus.

Patients Addicted to Opioid Painkillers Achieve Good Results With Outpatient Detoxification

A significant portion of individuals who are addicted to opioid painkillers may initiate and maintain abstinence with a brief but intensive outpatient detoxification treatment followed by opioid antagonist therapy using naltrexone.

Varenicline Helps People With Mental Illness Maintain Abstinence From Smoking

Varenicline (Chantix) helped outpatients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder remain abstinent from smoking in an 18-month-long NIDA-supported clinical trial. The finding strengthens hope that pharmacotherapy can break nicotine’s especially tenacious hold on people with serious mental illness. The need for effective anti-smoking treatments for people with severe mental illness is urgent and challenging. Severe psychiatric illness increases vulnerability to tobacco addiction and makes quitting harder. As a result, smoking prevalence among those with such illnesses has stayed roughly level

Dr. Kevin M. Gray Q & A: A Potential Medication for Marijuana Dependence

Dr. Kevin M. Gray, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina, discusses the promise of N -acetylcysteine as a potential treatment for marijuana use and dependence. In this podcast, NIDA-funded researcher Dr. Kevin M. Gray describes an ongoing clinical trial examining the possibility of using N-acetylcysteine to treat marijuana addiction. NIDA Notes: You obtained encouraging results in a trial of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) as an adjunct to behavioral therapy for marijuana use. Should clinicians begin using NAC with patients? Dr. Gray: I

New Approach Uses Immune Cells To Deliver Anti-HIV Medications

A new pharmacological approach being developed by NIDA-supported scientists has the potential to make treatment for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease easier and more effective. Called nano-antiretroviral therapy (nano-ART), the approach turns macrophages—one of the very cell types that HIV uses to replicate and spread through the body—into carriers for anti-HIV medications. A recent study with animals furthers hopes that nano-ART can relieve the current need for copious, tightly scheduled pill regimens that can challenge patients’ ability to adhere to a treatment. The study also

Training Workshops Boost Approval of Contingency Management

“It doesn’t address the underlying cause of addiction.” “It will undermine the patient’s internal motivation for abstinence.” “Its effect will last only as long as rewards continue to be given.” Clinicians affiliated with the Veterans Administration (VA) discounted the significance of these and other common criticisms of contingency management (CM) treatment for substance use and dependence (SUD) after attending 1.5-day training workshops on the intervention. Instead, they gave more weight to statements that reflect CM’s proven benefits, such as, “CM helps clients get sober so that they can

Study: Treat Jail Detainees’ Drug Abuse To Lower HIV Transmission

A study strongly suggests that offering jail detainees effective evidence-based treatment for substance use disorders can reduce the Nation’s burden of HIV. Researchers found that, among a large cohort of HIV-infected jail detainees, those who had used illicit drugs in the month before becoming incarcerated reported lower levels of engagement in HIV treatment than those who had not recently used illicit drugs. From 2007 to 2011, Dr. Ehsan Chitsaz at Yale University School of Medicine, Dr. Frederick Altice at the Yale School of Public Health, and colleagues recruited the largest cohort of HIV

Microneedle Milestone: One Week of Transdermal Drug Delivery

Microneedles have notched a significant advance on the way to clinical usefulness: A single treatment using the transdermal technique delivered therapeutic doses of the opioid antagonist naltrexone continuously for 7 days. Microneedles are an innovative technique for delivering medications through the skin, a route that could particularly benefit patients receiving naltrexone therapy for opioid and alcohol dependence. Both current methods of administering naltrexone have drawbacks. The oral formulation is short-acting, leading to problems with compliance; it can be difficult to dose optimally

HIV Infection Accelerates Hepatitis C–Related Liver Fibrosis

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection causes liver fibrosis that worsens as patients age, potentially progressing to cirrhosis and culminating in liver failure. A NIDA-funded study shows that concurrent infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is likely to hasten the onset of these clinical turning points. Dr. Gregory Kirk and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Baltimore, assessed liver fibrosis serially in more than 1,100 current and former injection drug users who were infected with HCV. After allowing for other factors that speed fibrosis, the JHU team estimated that

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