Disulfiram therapy in patients with hepatitis C: a 12-month, controlled, follow-up study.

Objective: Although abstinence slows liver injury in alcoholic Hepatitis C (HCV) infected patients, few clinicians prescribe disulfiram because of concern over its hepatotoxic effect. Finding no controlled studies on this effect, we investigated aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) patterns in seropositive (HCV[+]) and seronegative (HCV[-]) patients who received supervised disulfiram over 12 months.

Method: We recorded retrospective aminotransferase measurements from medical records of 26 HCV(+) and 20 HCV(-) cases receiving 1500 mg disulfiram weekly in divided doses.

A survey of addiction training programming in psychiatry residencies.

The authors surveyed 50 psychiatry residency training programs to examine the current status of addiction training and the impact of the new Residency Review Committee addiction training criteria for general psychiatry residencies. Only 5 programs did not already meet the new 1-month full-time equivalent addiction training requirement, and those programs anticipated only modest changes. The modal full-time equivalent addiction experience was actually 2 months, with great diversity in timing and settings.

Compliance to supervised disulfiram therapy: a comparison of voluntary and court-ordered patients.

We hypothesized that court mandate would significantly enhance compliance with supervised disulfiram therapy. We conducted a twelve-week prospective study of outpatient compliance with court-ordered, monitored disulfiram treatment as compared to voluntary, monitored treatment. The court ordered group (n=19) was significantly more compliant than the voluntary group (n=22).