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Tolerance and withdrawal commonly occur with chronic daily use, developing as quickly as 6–8 weeks depending on dose concentration and dosing frequency. Tolerance appears to be primarily a pharmacodynamic rather than pharmacokinetic effect, with relatively limited induction of cytochrome P450 or other liver enzymes. The metabolism of opiates occurs in the liver primarily through the cytochrome P450 systems of 2D6 and 3A4. They then are conjugated to glucuronic acid and excreted in small amounts in feces. The plasma half-lives generally range from 2.5 to 3 h for morphine and more than 22 h for methadone. The shortest half-lives of several minutes are for fentanyl-related opiates and the longest are for buprenorphine and its active metabolites, which can block opiate withdrawal for up to 3 days after a single dose. Tolerance to opioids leads to the need for increasing amounts of drugs to sustain the desired euphoric effects—as well as to avoid the discomfort of withdrawal. This combination has the expected consequence of strongly reinforcing dependence once it has started. Methadone taken chronically at maintenance doses is stored in the liver, which may reduce the occurrence of withdrawal between daily doses. The role of endogenous opioid peptides in tolerance and withdrawal is uncertain.
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The clinical features of abuse are tied to route of administration and the rapidity of an opiate bolus in reaching the brain. Intravenous and smoked administration rapidly produces a bolus of high drug concentration in the brain. This bolus produces a “rush,” followed by euphoria, a feeling of tranquility, and sleepiness (“the nod”). Heroin produces effects that last 3–5 h, and several doses a day are required to forestall manifestations of withdrawal in chronic users. Symptoms of opioid withdrawal begin 8–10 h after the last dose; lacrimation, rhinorrhea, yawning, and sweating appear first. Restless sleep followed by weakness, chills, gooseflesh (“cold turkey”), nausea and vomiting, muscle aches, and involuntary movements (“kicking the habit”), hyperpnea, hyperthermia, and hypertension occur in later stages of the withdrawal syndrome. The acute course of withdrawal may last 7–10 days. A secondary phase of protracted abstinence lasts for 26–30 weeks and is characterized by hypotension, bradycardia, hypothermia, mydriasis, and decreased responsiveness of the respiratory center to carbon dioxide.
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Besides the brain effects of opioids on sedation and euphoria and the combined brain and peripheral nervous system effects on analgesia, a wide range of other organs can be affected. The cough reflex is inhibited through the brain, leading to the use of some opiates as an antitussive, and nausea and vomiting are due to effects on the medulla. The release of several pituitary hormones is inhibited, including corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) and luteinizing hormone, which reduces levels of cortisol and sex hormones and can lead to impaired stress responses and reduced libido. An increase in prolactin also contributes to the reduced sex drive in males. Two other hormones affected are thyrotropin, which is reduced, and growth hormone, which is increased. Respiratory depression results from opiate-induced insensitivity of brainstem neurons to increases in carbon dioxide, and in patients with pulmonary disease, this can result in clinically significant complications. In overdoses, aspiration pneumonia is common due to loss of the gag reflex. Opiates reduce gut motility, which is helpful for treating diarrhea, but can lead to nausea, constipation, and anorexia with weight loss. Deaths occurred in early methadone maintenance programs due to severe constipation and toxic megacolon. Opiates such as methadone may prolong QT intervals and lead to sudden death in some patients. Orthostatic hypotension may occur due to histamine release and peripheral blood vessel dilation, which is an opiate effect usefully applied to managing acute myocardial infarction. During opiate maintenance, interactions with other medications are of concern; these include inducers of the cytochrome P450 system (usually CYP3A4) such as rifampin and carbamazepine.
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Heroin users in particular tend to use opiates intravenously and are likely to be polydrug users, also using alcohol, sedatives, cannabinoids, and stimulants. None of these other drugs are substitutes for opioids, but they have desired additive effects. Therefore, one needs to be sure that the person undergoing a withdrawal reaction is not also withdrawing from alcohol or sedatives, which might be more dangerous and more difficult to manage.
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Intravenous opiate use carries with it the risk of serious complications. The common sharing of hypodermic syringes can lead to infections with hepatitis B and HIV/AIDS, among others. Bacterial infections can lead to septic complications such as meningitis, osteomyelitis, and abscesses in various organs. Off-target effects of opiates synthesized in illicit drug labs can lead to serious toxicity. For example, attempts to illicitly manufacture meperidine in the 1980s resulted in the production of a highly specific neurotoxin, MPTP, which produced parkinsonism in users (Chap. 36).
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Lethal overdose is a relatively common complication of opiate use disorder. Rapid recognition and treatment with naloxone, a highly specific reversal agent that is relatively free of complications, is essential. The diagnosis is based on recognition of characteristic signs and symptoms, including shallow and slow respirations, pupillary miosis (mydriasis does not occur until significant brain anoxia supervenes), bradycardia, hypothermia, and stupor or coma. Blood or urine toxicology studies can confirm a suspected diagnosis, but immediate management must be based on clinical criteria. If naloxone is not administered, progression to respiratory and cardiovascular collapse leading to death occurs. At autopsy, cerebral edema and sometimes frothy pulmonary edema are generally found. Opiates generally do not produce seizures except for unusual cases of polydrug use with the opiate meperidine, with high doses of tramadol, or in the newborn.
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TREATMENT: Opioid Overdose
Beyond the acute treatment of opiate overdose with naloxone, clinicians have two general treatment options: opioid maintenance or detoxification. Opioid agonist and partial agonist medications are commonly used for both maintenance and detoxification purposes. Alpha-2-adrenergic agonists are primarily used for detoxification. Antagonists are used to accelerate detoxification and then continued after detoxification to prevent relapse. Only the residential medication-free programs have had success that comes close to matching that of the medication-based programs. Success of the various treatment approaches is assessed as retention in treatment and reduced opioid and other drug use; secondary outcomes, such as reduced HIV risk behaviors, crime, psychiatric symptoms, and medical comorbidity, also indicate successful treatment.
Stopping opiates is much easier than preventing relapse. Long-term relapse prevention for opioid-dependent persons requires combined pharmacologic and psychosocial approaches. Chronic users tend to prefer pharmacologic approaches; those with shorter histories of drug abuse are more amenable to detoxification and psychosocial interventions.
OPIATE OVERDOSE Managing overdose requires naloxone and support of vital functions, including intubation if needed (Table 64-2). If the overdose is due to buprenorphine, then naloxone might be required at total doses of 10 mg or greater, but primary buprenorphine overdose is nearly impossible because this agent is a partial opiate agonist, meaning that as the dose of buprenorphine is increased it has greater opiate antagonist than agonist activity. Thus, a 0.2-mg buprenorphine dose leads to analgesia and sedation, while a hundred times greater 20-mg dose produces profound opiate antagonism, precipitating opiate withdrawal in a person who was opiate dependent on morphine or methadone. It is important to recognize that the goal is to reverse the respiratory depression and not to administer so much naloxone that it precipitates opiate withdrawal. Because naloxone only lasts a few hours and most opiates last considerably longer, an IV naloxone drip with close monitoring is frequently employed to provide a continuous level of antagonism for 24–72 h depending on the opiate used in the overdose (e.g., morphine vs methadone). Whenever naloxone has only a limited effect, other sedative drugs that produce significant overdoses must be considered. The most common are benzodiazepines, which have produced overdoses and deaths in combination with buprenorphine. A specific antagonist for benzodiazepines—flumazenil at 0.2 mg/min—can be given to a maximum of 3 g/h, but it may precipitate seizures and increase intracranial pressure. Like naloxone, administration for a prolonged period is usually required because most benzodiazepines remain active for considerably longer than flumazenil. Support of vital functions may include oxygen and positive-pressure breathing, IV fluids, pressor agents for hypotension, and cardiac monitoring to detect QT prolongation, which might require specific treatment. Activated charcoal and gastric lavage may be helpful for oral ingestions, but intubation will be needed if the patient is stuporous.
OPIATE WITHDRAWAL The principles of detoxification are the same for all drugs: to substitute a longer-acting, orally active, pharmacologically equivalent medication for the substance being used, stabilize the patient on that medication, and then gradually withdraw the substituted medication. Methadone or buprenorphine are the two medications used to treat opioid use disorder. Clonidine, a centrally acting sympatholytic agent, has also been used for detoxification in the United States. By reducing central sympathetic outflow, clonidine mitigates many of the signs of sympathetic overactivity but typically requires augmentation with other agents. Clonidine has no narcotic action and is not addictive. Lofexidine, a clonidine analogue with less hypotensive effect, is not yet approved in the United States.
Methadone for detoxification Dose-tapering regimens for detoxification using methadone range from 2–3 weeks to as long as 180 days, but this approach is controversial given the relative effectiveness of methadone maintenance and the low success rates of detoxification. Unfortunately, the vast majority of patients tend to relapse to heroin or other opiates during or after the detoxification period, indicative of the chronic and relapsing nature of opioid use disorder.Buprenorphine for Detoxification
Buprenorphine does not appear to lead to better outcomes than methadone but is superior to clonidine in reducing symptoms of withdrawal, retaining patients in a withdrawal protocol, and in completing treatment.Alpha-2-Adrenergic Agonists for Detoxification
Several alpha-2-adrenergic agonists have relieved opioid withdrawal by suppressing brain noradrenergic hyperactivity. Clonidine relieves some signs and symptoms of opiate withdrawal such as lacrimation, rhinorrhea, muscle pain, joint pain, restlessness, and gastrointestinal symptoms. Related agents are lofexidine, guanfacine, and guanabenz acetate. Lofexidine can be dosed up to ~2 mg/d and appears to be associated with fewer adverse effects. Clonidine or lofexidine is typically administered orally, in three or four doses per day, with dizziness, sedation, lethargy, and dry mouth as the primary adverse side effects. Outpatient-managed withdrawal will require close follow-up often with naltrexone maintenance to prevent relapse.Rapid and Ultrarapid Opiate Detoxification
The opioid antagonist naltrexone typically combined with an alpha-2-adrenergic agonist has been purported to shorten the duration of withdrawal without significantly increasing patient discomfort. Completion rates using naltrexone and clonidine range from 75 to 81% compared to 40 to 65% for methadone or clonidine alone. Ultrarapid opiate detoxification is an extension of this approach using anesthetics but is highly controversial due to the medical risks and mortality associated with it.
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Opioid agonist medications for maintenance
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Methadone maintenance substitutes a once-daily oral opioid dose for three- to four-times daily heroin. Methadone saturates the opioid receptors and, by inducing a high level of opiate tolerance, blocks the euphoria from additional opiates. Buprenorphine, a partial opioid agonist, also can be given once daily at sublingual doses of 4–32 mg daily, and in contrast to methadone, it can be given in an office-based primary care setting.
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Methadone’s slow onset of action when taken orally, long elimination half-life (24–36 h), and production of cross-tolerance at doses from 80 to 150 mg are the basis for its efficacy in treatment retention and reductions in IV drug use, criminal activity, and HIV risk behaviors and mortality. Methadone can prolong the QT interval at rates as high as 16% above the rates in non-methadone-maintained, drug-injecting patients, but it has been used safely in the treatment of opioid dependence for 40 years.
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While France and Australia have had sublingual buprenorphine maintenance since 1996, it was first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2002 as a Schedule III drug for managing opioid use disorder. Unlike the full agonist methadone, buprenorphine is a partial agonist of mu-opioid receptors with a slow onset and long duration of action. Its partial agonism reduces the risk of unintentional overdose but limits its efficacy to patients who need the equivalent of only 60–70 mg of methadone, and many patients in methadone maintenance require higher doses up to 150 mg daily. Buprenorphine is combined with naloxone at a 4:1 ratio in order to reduce its abuse liability. Because of pediatric exposures and diversion of buprenorphine to illicit use, a new formulation, using mucosal films rather than sublingual pills that were crushed and snorted, is now marketed. A subcutaneous buprenorphine implant that lasts up to 6 months has also been tested and is pending FDA approval as a formulation improvement to prevent pediatric exposures and illicit diversion and enhance compliance.
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In the United States, the ability of primary care physicians to prescribe buprenorphine for opioid use disorder represents an important opportunity to improve access and quality of treatment as well as reduce social harm. Europe, Asia, and Australia have found reduced opioid-related deaths and drug-injection-related medical morbidity with buprenorphine available in primary care. Retention in office-based buprenorphine treatment has been high as 70% at 6-month follow-ups.
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Opioid antagonist medications
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The rationale for using narcotic antagonist therapy is that blocking the action of self-administered opioids should eventually extinguish the habit, but this therapy is poorly accepted by patients. Naltrexone, a long-acting orally active pure opioid antagonist, can be given three times a week at doses of 100–150 mg. Because it is an antagonist, the patient must first be detoxified from opioid dependence before starting naltrexone. It is safe even when taken chronically for years, is associated with few side effects (headache, nausea, abdominal pain), and can be given to patients infected with hepatitis B or C without producing hepatotoxicity. However, most providers refrain from prescribing naltrexone if liver function tests are three times above normal levels. Naltrexone maintenance combined with psychosocial therapy is effective in reducing heroin use, but medication adherence is low. Depot injection formulations lasting up to 4 weeks markedly improve adherence, retention, and drug use. Subcutaneous naltrexone implants in Russia, China, and Australia have doubled treatment retention and reduced relapse to half that of oral naltrexone. In the United States, a depot naltrexone formulation is available for monthly use and maintains blood levels equivalent to 25 mg of daily oral use.
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Medication-free treatment
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Most opiate addicts enter medication-free treatments in inpatient, residential, or outpatient settings, but 1- to 5-year outcomes are very poor compared to pharmacotherapy except for residential settings lasting 6 to 18 months. The residential programs require full immersion in a regimented system with progressively increasing levels of independence and responsibility within a controlled community of fellow drug abusers. These medication-free programs, as well as the pharmacotherapy programs, also include counseling and behavioral treatments designed to teach interpersonal and cognitive skills for coping with stress and for avoiding situations leading to easy access to drugs or to craving. Relapse is prevented by having the individual very gradually reintroduced to greater responsibilities and to the working environment outside of the protected therapeutic community.