Monthly Shot Curbs Alcohol Dependence

A once-a-month injection may help alcoholics maintain sobriety.

A once-a-month injection may help alcoholics maintain sobriety.Naltexone is a drug that blocks opiate receptors and has been used to treat drug addiction, but previous studies looking at the effects of naltrexone in people with alcoholism have produced varying results. This may have been because subjects didn’t strictly comply with taking the medication daily, say the researchers in the July issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. In theory, a long-acting “depot” formulation of the drug given by injection at relatively long intervals might improve compliance and treatment results. To investigate, Dr. Henry R. Kranzler, from the University of Connecticut in Farmington, and colleagues assessed the outcomes of 315 patients with alcohol dependence who were randomized to receive a monthly injection of long-acting naltrexone or an inactive placebo for 3 months. In addition, all subjects attended five sessions of motivational counseling. Compared with placebo, long-acting naltrexone significantly prolonged the time to the first drinking day, the investigators report. In addition, naltrexone-treated patients had significantly fewer drinking days and had a higher abstinence rate than controls (18 percent versus 10 percent). The drug appeared to be well tolerated and 74 percent of patients received all injections. “This is the first multicenter study of a depot formulation of naltrexone for the treatment of alcohol dependence,” the authors point out. Further studies, they add, are needed to investigate the use of this formulation for other addictions and to compare it with oral naltrexone. (SOURCE: Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research: Reuters Health News: July 2004.)