Treatment - Opioid Use Disorders

Treatment

There are currently a number of effective pharmacological and behavioral therapies for the treatment of opioid dependence, with these two approaches often combined to optimize outcome. There are also some newer treatment options, which may take various forms. For example, methadone maintenance is an established treatment, while the use of buprenorphine/naloxone in an office-based setting represents a new variation on that theme. Clonidine has been used extensively to treat opioid withdrawal while lofexi-dine is a structural analog that appears to have less hypotensive and sedating effects. The depot dosage form of naltrexone, cur-rently under development, may increase compliance with a medi-cation that has been an effective opioid antagonist but which has been underutilized due to poor acceptance by patients. In almost every treatment episode using pharmacotherapy, it is combined with some type of psychosocial or behavioral treatment. Recent research has documented the value of these additional treatments and provided insight into the ones that are the most effective.