Randomized trial of long-acting sustained-release naltrexone implant vs oral naltrexone or placebo for preventing relapse to opioid dependence.

CONTEXT Sustained-release naltrexone implants may improve outcomes of nonagonist treatment of opioid addiction. OBJECTIVE To compare outcomes of naltrexone implants, oral naltrexone hydrochloride, and nonmedication treatment. DESIGN Six-month double-blind, double-dummy, randomized trial.

[The relationship between the craving for alcohol and relapse of the disease].

The craving for alcohol was studied using 2 Russian and 4 international scales, including ratings of the clinician and self-rating of the patient. Depression and anxiety as well as the content of alcohol in exhaled air were assessed. The data were compared to the scores of the Impulsive Relapse Questionnaire.

Single versus repeated sessions of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for people with heroin dependence.

A prior study found that one ketamine-assisted psychotherapy session was significantly more effective than active placebo in promoting abstinence (Krupitsky et al. 2002). In this study of the efficacy of single versus repeated sessions of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy in promoting abstinence in people with heroin dependence, 59 detoxified inpatients with heroin dependence received a ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KPT) session prior to their discharge from an addiction treatment hospital, and were then randomized into two treatment groups.

Overcoming opioid blockade from depot naltrexone (Prodetoxon).

Aim: To describe a situation in which an opioid-dependent patient overcame naltrexone blockade. DESIGN, CASE REPORT, SETTING: Addiction treatment center in St Petersburg, Russia.

Participant: Patient with naltrexone implant.

Antiglutamatergic strategies for ethanol detoxification: comparison with placebo and diazepam.

Background: Benzodiazepines are the standard pharmacotherapies for ethanol detoxification, but concerns about their abuse potential and negative effects upon the transition to alcohol abstinence drive the search for new treatments. Glutamatergic activation and glutamate receptor up-regulation contribute to ethanol dependence and withdrawal. This study compared 3 antiglutamatergic strategies for ethanol detoxification with placebo and to the benzodiazepine, diazepam: the glutamate release inhibitor, lamotrigine; the N-methyl-D-aspartate glutamate receptor antagonist, memantine; and the AMPA/kainite receptor inhibitor, topiramate.

Effect of memantine on cue-induced alcohol craving in recovering alcohol-dependent patients.

Objective: Ethanol blocks N-methyl-d-aspartic acid (NMDA) glutamate receptors. Increased NMDA receptor function may contribute to motivational disturbances that contribute to alcoholism. The authors assessed whether the NMDA receptor antagonist memantine reduces cue-induced alcohol craving and produces ethanol-like subjective effects.

Co-morbidity of infectious and addictive diseases in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Russia.

The Russian health care system is organized around specific diseases, with relatively little focus on integration across specialties to address co-morbidities. This organizational structure presents new challenges in the context of the recent epidemics of injection drug use (IDU) and HIV. This paper uses existing and new data to examine the prevalence of reported new cases of drug dependence (heroin) and HIV over time as well as associations between drug dependence and alcoholism, hepatitis B and C, and tuberculosis in the City of St.

[The efficacy of calcium channel blockers in the treatment of affective disorders and pathologic drive for alcohol in patients with alcoholism in the remission period].

Forty three patients with chronic alcoholism of stage II with secondary affective disorders (anxiety, subdepression) and actualization of pathological drive for alcohol in remission period were divided into 3 groups: patients were treated with nimodipine (90 mg/day during 10 days), patients were treated with nifedipine (45 mg/day during 10 days) and patients of control group (they received a placebo for 10 days). The study was double blind. The results revealed that both calcium channels antagonists reduced a level of depression measured with the Hamilton scale and Zung test.

[Ethanol inhibits platelet monoamine oxidase type B activity in patients with alcoholism].

The influence of 400 mM ethanol on the activity of monoamine oxidase type B (MAO-B) of blood platelets has been studied in vitro in 30 alcoholic patients and 30 healthy volunteers. Benzylamine was used as a substrate for MAO-B. MAO-B inhibition by ethanol was higher in alcoholics compared to healthy volunteers.