Researchers Get $40 Million in Grants for Studying Opioid Addiction

The Veterans Affairs Cooperative Study gave $40 million worth of grants to Yale School of Medicine. The purpose of these grants is to study opioid addiction treatments states a press release from Yale given on March 21, 2019. With there being an opioid epidemic in so many areas around the nation, these grants will hopefully help to find some answers and more solutions to the epidemic (https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/about-the-epidemic/index.html) as well.

Purpose of the Study

Sandra Springer, an internal medicine professor, and Ismene Petrakis, a psychiatry professor, in the School of Medicine will run the studies. They will compare two different forms of the FDA approved medication, buprenorphine. This is a drug that is often used for treatments of opioid addiction. Springer stated during November of 2017, that the FDA had approved buprenorphine injections to be administered 1 time every 28 days. Before this approval, the same drug was only given in oral forms on a daily basis.

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Springer and Petrakis believe it will be more effective to hypothesize the injections. Over the course of the 4-year study, there will be 900 veterans included who want to get opioid use disorder treatments. They will get the injectable or oral form of the buprenorphine for the time period of 1 year. They will participate in longer studies as well to see what the treatment results are in regards to abstinence from opioids.

Criteria for the Study

Retention and effectiveness are the 2 criteria which will be used in this study. Both the retention and effectiveness of the injectable and oral forms (https://www.naabt.org/documents/TIP40.pdf) of this drug will be studied stated Springer. She had also said that this study is very unique in that in addition to the effectiveness, the retention is being looked at as well. Springer stated that it is essential to see how effective this medication is for helping people keep in treatments. Once they quit treatment, the chances of relapsing and dying from the use of this drug increase. Springer, who is also an infectious disease specialist, stated that looking at opioid addiction might help to reduce the spread of infectious diseases often seen with opioid abuse such as
Hepatitis C and HIV.

Length of the Study

Petrakis stated that this study might be more unusual than others because it stays with the participants over the course of 1 year. It is quite expensive to keep medical trials going for this length of time. The importance of keeping the study going for this long is that many people who have an addiction won’t recover in shorter amounts of time. The length of this study is going to provide a more comprehensive investigation into how effective this medication (https://www.samhsa.gov/medication-assisted-treatment/treatment/buprenorphine) is for fighting addiction.

Hypothesis for the Study

Every study should have a hypothesis. For this study, the researches have a hypothesis that the injection version of this drug will have greater effectiveness than the oral version of the drug. If this is right, it may be more widely accepted that the injectable version is used over the oral version. It may be available to many other patients, instead of just the veterans. If the results of the study show the oral version to be more effective, there may be further research that could be done in regards to these comparisons. Springer stated that taking medication orally and daily could remind someone that they should not be abusing drugs. It might have a psychological benefit over taking the injection. The National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIDA, states that over 130 people throughout the United States of America die each day from an opioid overdose. This is just one of the reasons why this study is much needed.

There has been a lot of research done on opioids, the abuse of these drugs, and addictions to them as well. Throughout the years, much has been determined in regards to the opioid epidemic. Now it is time for further research to be done regarding the effectiveness of certain medications for fighting opioid addiction over others. This study regarding the effectiveness of the oral version compared to the injectable version is a great start. The results could help to figure out better ways to fight opioid addiction for all people, not just veterans (https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/military).

We at Sunshine Behavioral Health (https://www.facebook.com/SunshineBehavi1/) believe in discussing current opioid news. Questions or concerns, make sure to contact us.