Introduction And Background: The three medications approved to address OUD are effective in decreasing opioid use and morbidity and mortality; however, their utility is limited by high rates of dropout from treatment. The CTN-0100 trial will develop an evidence base for strategies to improve retention on buprenorphine and extended-release naltrexone.
Research Design And Methods: The National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) study CTN-0100, "Optimizing Retention, Duration and Discontinuation Strategies for Opioid Use Disorder Pharmacotherapy" (RDD), is a multicenter, randomized, non-blinded trial enrolling more than a thousand patients from 18 community-based substance use disorder treatment programs.
Introduction And Background: Buprenorphine, and extended-release naltrexone, are effective in decreasing opioid use, morbidity and mortality. The available evidence suggests that these medications should be used for long term treatment; however, patients often ask how long they need to be on medication, and whether it would be safe to discontinue. There are sparse data to guide us.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMedications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) increase retention in care and decrease mortality during active treatment; however, information about the comparative effectiveness of different forms of MOUD is sparse. Observational comparative effectiveness studies are subject to many types of bias; a robust framework to minimize bias would improve the quality of comparative effectiveness evidence. This paper discusses the use of target trial emulation as a framework to conduct comparative effectiveness studies of MOUD with administrative data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCOVID-19 disease has been a challenge for health systems worldwide due to its high transmissibility, morbidity, and mortality. Severe COVID-19 is associated with an imbalance in the immune response, resulting in a cytokine storm and a hyperinflammation state. While hematological parameters correlate with prognosis in COVID patients, their predictive value has not been evaluated specifically among those severely ill.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Patients with bipolar disorder (BD) are frequently exposed to traumatic events which worsen disease course, but this study is the first multicentre randomised controlled trial to test the efficacy of a trauma-focused adjunctive psychotherapy in reducing BD affective relapse rates.
Materials And Methods: This multicentre randomised controlled trial included 77 patients with BD and current trauma-related symptoms. Participants were randomised to either 20 sessions of trauma-focused Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy for BD, or 20 sessions of supportive therapy (ST).