A Follow-Up Study of Patients Previously on LAAM Maintenance

Abstract

Many studies in the past decade, including several large-scale cooperative clinical trials, have demonstrated the safety and efficacy of LAAM as an alternative treatment agent to methadone maintenance treatment. About 3000 patients are currently involved in a multi-clinic Phase III study and there is hope that LAAM may soon become available for general clinical use. However, very little follow-up information of patients previously treated with LAAM is presently available. This report describes such a study of two cohorts of patients treated by us in the two Phase II cooperative studies comparing LAAM and methadone. We wanted to see if there were any unforeseen late adverse effects of LAAM treatment in these patients as well as to see how they perceived their treatment experience with LAAM some time after the pressure of being a study subject had ceased. We also took the opportunity to examine several aspects of their lives to see if treatment with LAAM and with methadone affected these areas differently.