Suboxone and Young Adults

Good afternoon and how is everybody this afternoon?
Everyday I find myself searching the web for articles pertaining to Suboxone. A lot of times I have wondered about Teenagers. I mean, well we all know too well that they are just as prone to the dangers of addiction as we are. Adults have Suboxone and Methadone to help them. But what about them? What do they have? I came across an article published in November this year. I have included it below for those of you that would like to read and comment.

Subject: Suboxone And Young Adults

Extended Suboxone Treatment Substantially Improves Outcomes For Opioid-Addicted Young Adults - Preferable To Detox And Standard Counseling Alone.

In the first clinical trial of a medication that was used for an extended time to treat opioid addiction in young adults, participants who received counseling and Suboxone (buprenorphine-naloxone) for 12 weeks had substantially better outcomes than those who received the standard treatment of short-term detoxification and counseling. The study, published November 5 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was conducted through the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Opioids include heroin, morphine and prescription pain killers such as Vicodin and Oxycontin.

Opioid-addicted youth who continued to take Suboxone for 12 weeks were less likely to use opioids, cocaine and marijuana, to inject drugs, or drop out of treatment than those who received short-term detoxification and counseling. "These findings should reassure and encourage providers who have been hesitant to offer extended Suboxone treatment to this population," said NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow. "They also highlight the need for longer-term studies to determine whether sustained treatment can improve outcomes."

For this study, investigators recruited 154 opioid-addicted patients aged 15 to 21 at six outpatient substance abuse treatment clinics around the country. Patients had been addicted to opioids for an average of 1.5 years. All participants were offered group and individual counseling for 12 weeks. In addition, participants were randomly assigned to either 2 weeks of detoxification using Suboxone or 12 weeks of extended Suboxone treatment. In the latter group, the daily dose of Suboxone was gradually tapered downward starting at week 9 and the drug was discontinued at week 12.

Participants assigned to extended Suboxone treatment were much less likely to provide opioid-positive urine samples at weeks 4 and 8, but not at week 12 (when the dose had tapered off) than those in the standard detoxification group. Follow-up evaluations at months 6, 9 and 12 showed increased rates of opioid use in both groups compared to the end of the treatment period; however, rates of opioid use were somewhat lower in both groups than they were before treatment, particularly in the extended-treatment group. Although patients were young, findings resembled those of older adults with longer term opioid dependence "We saw a marked reduction in opioid and other drug use; less injecting behavior, and better treatment retention in the patients assigned to longer-term Suboxone treatment," says principal investigator George Woody, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania and Treatment Research Institute, and VA Medical Center in Philadelphia.

Extended use of Suboxone appeared to effectively control study participants' symptoms of opioid withdrawal," says co-investigator Geetha Subramaniam, M.D., of Johns Hopkins University, who oversaw patients enrolled in the study at a substance abuse treatment clinic in Baltimore. "The teens and young adults readily accepted Suboxone and tolerated it well. They seldom complained about sedation [a side effect of methadone and other medications for opioid dependence] and were pleased that they remained alert and could function during the day."

Source: Medical News Today Article Date: 04 Nov 2008

Published By: Dee Black, Moderator