Researchers funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, launched the first large-scale national study evaluating a treatment for addiction to prescription opioid analgesics (i.e., painkillers) such as Vicodin and OxyContin.
NIDA's National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) is conducting the multi-site study, known as the Prescription Opiate Addiction Treatment Study (POATS).
The study, which plans to enroll 648 participants, is being carried out at NYU Medical Center in partnership with Bellevue Hospital Center, as well as at 10 other sites across the country. Participants include people who take prescription drugs for chronic pain and have become addicted to them, as well as those who abuse painkillers for non-medical reasons, including getting “high.” Several of the study sites are located in rural areas experiencing high rates of abuse of prescription pain medications, particularly OxyContin. NYU/Bellevue intends to enroll 54 patients.
This project is a response to the growing national problem of prescription drug abuse in this country. According to the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the incidence of new nonmedical users of pain relievers is now at 2.2 million Americans aged 12 and older, surpassing the number of new marijuana abusers (2.1 million). In 2005, more than six million Americans reported current (in the past month) nonmedical use of prescription drugs—more than the number abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, and inhalants, combined.
The study, which is now open for enrollment, will test the effectiveness of buprenorphine/naloxone tablets, marketed as Suboxone®, along with different models of drug counseling in patients addicted to prescription opioids. Buprenorphine works by acting on the brain's own opiate receptors—targets for heroin, morphine, and prescription opioids—relieving drug cravings without prompting the same intense high or dangerous side effects. When combined with naloxone, buprenorphine's abuse potential is further limited, since those who try to inject it to get high experience severe withdrawal symptoms, while no adverse effects occur when it is taken orally, as prescribed. This medication has been approved for prescribing by specially trained physicians in office-based settings, greatly expanding the treatment options available for opiate addiction.