Background: Cocaine pharmacotherapy trials are often confounded by considerable variability in baseline cocaine-use levels, obscuring possible medication efficacy. Testing the feasibility of using a prerandomization, abstinence-induction protocol, we screened three candidate medications to explore treatment response in patients who did, or did not, achieve abstinence during an extended baseline phase.
Method: Eligible treatment-seeking, cocaine-dependent subjects entered a 4-week baseline period (Phase I) with high-value abstinence contingent vouchers and two motivational interviewing sessions, followed by a 12-week medication trial (Phase II) with random assignment stratified on Phase I abstinence status to (1) modafinil (400mg/d), (2) levodopa/carbidopa (800/200mg/d), (3) naltrexone (50mg/d), or (4) placebo. Treatment consisted of thrice-weekly clinic visits for urine benzoylecgonine testing and weekly cognitive behavioral therapy with contingency management targeting medication compliance.
Results: Of the 118 subjects enrolled, 81 (80%) completed Phase I, with 33 (41%) achieving abstinence, defined a priori as 6 consecutive cocaine-negative urines. Tests of the interaction of each medication (active versus placebo) by baseline status (abstinent versus nonabstinent) permitted moderator effect analysis. Overall, baseline abstinence predicted better outcome. Cocaine-use outcomes for levodopa and naltrexone treatment differed as a function of Phase I abstinence status, with both medications producing benefit in nonabstinent but not baseline-abstinent subjects. There was no evidence of a moderator effect for modafinil.
Conclusions: The two-phase screening trial demonstrated that subgrouping of patients with respect to baseline abstinence status is feasible and clinically useful for exploring cocaine cessation and relapse-prevention effects of candidate medications.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2013.12.015 | DOI Listing |
Hematol Oncol
January 2025
University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, USA.
Despite the study of BCR::ABL1-positive and -negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) providing seminal insights into cancer biology, tumor evolution and precision oncology over the past half century, significant challenges remain. MPNs are clonal hematopoietic stem cell-derived neoplasms with heterogenous clinical phenotypes and a clonal architecture which impacts the often-complex underlying genetics and microenvironment. The major driving molecular abnormalities have been well characterized, but debate on their role as disease-initiating molecular lesions continues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBrain
January 2025
Department of Neurology, Neurological Institute, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
The neurobiological mechanisms driving the ictal-interictal fluctuations and the chronification of migraine remain elusive. We aimed to construct a composite genetic-microRNA model that could reflect the dynamic perturbations of the disease course and inform the pathogenesis of migraine. We prospectively recruited four groups of participants, including interictal episodic migraine (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Med Res Opin
January 2025
Investigator Initiated Study Promotion Center, Tokyo, Japan.
Objective: To explore the risk factors for discontinuation of pericapsular soft tissue and pelvic realignment (PSTP-R) therapy derived from Shiatsu in the candidates with osteoarthritis for total hip replacement (THR) (i.e., candidates for total hip replacement) treated from 2017 to 2020, and to identify the effect modifiers of PSTP-R therapy for patients who continued therapy for 6 months.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVirulence
December 2025
Manchester Fungal Infection Group (MFIG), Division of Evolution, Infection, and Genomics, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Sulfur metabolism is an essential aspect of fungal physiology and pathogenicity. Fungal sulfur metabolism comprises anabolic and catabolic routes that are not well conserved in mammals, therefore is considered a promising source of prospective novel antifungal targets. To gain insight into sulfur-related metabolism during infection, we used a NanoString custom nCounter-TagSet and compared the expression of 68 key metabolic genes in different murine models of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis, at 3 time-points, and under a variety of conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBreast Cancer Res
January 2025
Precision Medicine, School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Monash University, 246 Clayton Road, Clayton, VIC, 3168, Australia.
Background: Tumour DNA methylation has been investigated as a potential marker for breast cancer survival, but findings often lack replication across studies.
Methods: This study sought to replicate previously reported associations for individual CpG sites and multi-CpG signatures using an Australian sample of 425 women with breast cancer from the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study (MCCS). Candidate methylation sites (N = 22) and signatures (N = 3) potentially associated with breast cancer survival were identified from five prior studies that used The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) methylation dataset, which shares key characteristics with the MCCS: comparable sample size, tissue type (formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded; FFPE), technology (Illumina HumanMethylation450 array), and participant characteristics (age, ancestry, and disease subtype and severity).
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