Opioid substitution treatment, relapse and addiction-related outcomes in prison setting and after release: A longitudinal study.

Opioid addiction is a common problem among prisoners. The aim of this study was to examine differences between people who are incarcerated receiving opioid substitution treatment (OST) and those not receiving OST on addiction-related outcome variables during incarceration and after release from prison. Variables covered illicit use of opioids, non-prescribed substitution medication and other substances, opioid withdrawal symptoms, opioid craving, non-fatal overdoses and post-release substitution treatment.

[First Aid Training for Drug Overdose in Opioid Addicts and Provision of Take-Home Naloxone on Release from Prison: Feasibility Study from the Bavarian Model Project].

Introduction: Between 22 and 30% of prisoners in Germany are reported to be intravenous drug users. There is a 12-fold increase in mortality, mostly as a result of opioid overdose in the first weeks after release from prison. We evaluated the feasibility of first aid training for drug overdose, including take-home naloxone in incarcerated opioid addicts.

German Guidelines on Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorders: Update 2021.

Introduction: Alcohol consumption in Germany is associated with considerable health and economic consequences. In addition to prevention, the early detection and differential treatment of those affected play an important role. The guideline "Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorders" forms the basis of this care for people suffering from alcohol use disorders.

Colocalization analysis of pancreas eQTLs with risk loci from alcoholic and novel non-alcoholic chronic pancreatitis GWAS suggests potential disease causing mechanisms.

Background: Previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identified genome-wide significant risk loci in chronic pancreatitis and investigated underlying disease causing mechanisms by simple overlaps with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs), a procedure which may often result in false positive conclusions.

Methods: We conducted a GWAS in 584 non-alcoholic chronic pancreatitis (NACP) patients and 6040 healthy controls. Next, we applied Bayesian colocalization analysis of identified genome-wide significant risk loci from both, our recently published alcoholic chronic pancreatitis (ACP) and the novel NACP dataset, with pancreas eQTLs from the GTEx V8 European cohort to prioritize candidate causal genes and extracted credible sets of shared causal variants.

[Kratom - a short review for pain medicine].

Background: Consumption of the psychotropic plant kratom (botanical name: Mitragyna speciosa) is sometimes used for the self-medication of chronic or acute pain. An increase in the use is possible in Germany in the future.

Objective: This review provides an overview on kratom for pain specialists.