Newer approaches to opioid detoxification

Abstract

Opioid use disorders present with distressing withdrawal symptoms at the time of detoxification. The pharmacological agents and methods currently in use for detoxification mainly include buprenorphine, methadone, and clonidine. Many other pharmacological agents have been tried for opioid detoxification. This review takes a look at the newer pharmacological options, both opioid agonists and non-agonist medications that have been utilized for detoxification. Peer reviewed articles were identified using PubMed and PsychInfo databases. The keywords included for the search were a combination of ‘opioid’ and ‘detoxification’ and their synonyms. All the articles published in the last 10 years were screened for. Relevant data was extracted from identified studies. Many newer pharmacological agents have been tried in detoxification of opioids. However, the quest for a safe, efficacious, cost-effective pharmacological option which requires minimal monitoring still continues. The role of non-pharmacological measures and alternative medicine needs further evaluation.

Efficacy of buprenorphine and clonidine in opioid detoxification: A hospital- based study

“…The present study is somewhat unique in the sense that it makes an attempt to compare buprenorphine, an opioid partial agonist with that of clonidine which is a nonopioid drug and see their effectiveness in control of withdrawal symptoms due to opioid dependence. Although studies are there that have looked at the effectiveness of nonopioid drugs such as clonidine, venlafaxine, buspirone, quetiapine, etc., on as well as the several opioid agonists/partial agonists,[ 28 ] there is almost no study in India which compares these two distinct and different category of drugs. The study further compares both these drugs at two different dosage regimens (one at a lower dosage and the other at a comparatively higher dosage) to see their effectiveness in controlling withdrawals due to the opioid intake.…”