Naltrexone implants in opioid dependence: a proof of mechanism study with pk and pd measures

海洛因成瘾是一个重大的社会和健康问题，每年造成成千上万人死亡，也是许多其他健康、社会和犯罪问题的一个原因。目前的治疗方法是有效的，但它们依赖于让成瘾者服用替代药物，如美沙酮和丁丙诺啡，这些药物能有效地让他们保持清醒。？ 限制了重返工作岗位的能力，也需要每天去诊所或药房。一个更好的策略是使用一种药物来阻断大脑中对海洛因起作用的部位，这样瘾君子在服用海洛因后就不会有任何效果。这被证明对那些有强烈动机服用阻滞剂的人有效，比如医生，但同样需要每天给药，这样很容易停药，然后又恢复海洛因的使用。这项资助使用了一种新的阻滞剂制剂，这种制剂可以植入皮肤下（就像长效储存避孕药一样），因此将在3-6个月之间起作用。在将其作为一种治疗方法之前，我们需要探索阻滞持续多久，以便确定重复植入的时间，而这项拨款就是为了做到这一点。根据我们的发现，我们应该能够用这种令人兴奋的新方法设计出针对海洛因成瘾的最佳治疗方案。

Heroin addiction is a major social and health problem that results in many thousands of deaths per year, and is also a cause of many other health social and criminal problems. Current treatments are effective but they rely on keeping addicts on alternative drugs such as methadone and buprenorphine that effectively keep them ?stoned? ? sp limiting the ability to return to work and also necessitating daily attendance at clinics or pharmacies. A much better strategy would be to use a drug to block the brain sites of action of heroin so that the addict got no effect when it was taken. This is proven to work in people with high motivation to take the blocker e.g. doctors, but again daily dosing is required so that it is easy to stop and then resume heroin use. This grant uses a new blocker preparation that is implanted under the skin [like the long-acting depot contraceptive pill] and so will work for between 3-6 months. Before using this as a treatment we need to explore just how long the blockade last so that the timing of repeat implants can be made and this grant is designed to do this. From our findings we should be able to design the optimal treatment package for heroin addiction with this exciting new approach.