Injection drug users constitute 60% of the more than 4 million people in the United States with hepatitis C virus (HCV), including many methadone maintenance patients. Few data exist describing clinical outcomes for patients receiving HCV treatment on-site in a methadone maintenance settings. In this retrospective study, we describe clinical outcomes for 73 patients receiving HCV treatment on-site in a methadone maintenance treatment program. Fifty-five percent of patients achieved endof-treatment response, and 45% achieved sustained viral response. These treatment response rates are nearly equivalent to previously published HCV treatment response rates, despite high prevalences of ongoing drug use (49%), psychiatric comorbidity (67%), and HIV coinfection (32%). These data show that on-site HCV treatment with pegylated interferon and ribavirin is effective in methadonemaintained patients, many of whom are active drug users, psychiatrically ill, or HIV coinfected, and that methadone maintenance treatment programs represent an opportunity to safely treat chronic hepatitis C.

Opioids have been used for centuries to treat a variety of psychiatric conditions with much success. The so-called "opium cure" lost popularity in the early 1950s with the development of non-addictive tricyclic antidepressants and monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Nonetheless, recent literature supports the potent role of methadone, buprenorphine, tramadol, morphine, and other opioids as effective, durable, and rapid therapeutic agents for anxiety and depression. This article reviews the medical literature on the treatment of psychiatric disorders with opioids (notably, methadone and buprenorphine) in both the non-opioid-dependent population and in the opioid-dependent methadone maintenance population. The most recent neurotransmitter theories on the origin of depression and anxiety will be reviewed, including current information on the role of serotonin, N-Methyl d-Aspartate, glutamate, cortisol, catecholamine, and dopamine in psychiatric disorders. The observation that methadone maintenance patients with co-existing psychiatric morbidity (so called dual diagnosis patients) require substantially higher methadone dosages by between 20% and 50% will be explored and qualified. The role of methadone and other opioids as beneficial psychiatric medications that are independent of their drug abuse mitigating properties will be discussed. The mechanisms by which methadone and other opioids can favorably modulate the neurotransmitter systems controlling mood will also be discussed.

Urine toxicology screening testing is an important standard of care in the addiction and pain treatment setting, offering a reproducible, unbiased, and accurate laboratory test to monitor patients and provide objective support for clinical observations. It has been shown that physicians do not have proficiency in the ordering or interpretation of these tests. This article is an attempt to respond to that need. Current antibody-based enzymatic immunoassays (EIAs) used for urine toxicology screening are useful to detect classes of drugs (ex., opiate) but cannot determine which specific drug (ex., morphine) is present. Gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy can determine exactly which drugs are present, allowing prescribed (or illicit) opiates and benzodiazepines to be identified. This article will discuss principles and details of opiate and benzodiazepine EIA and gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy urine toxicology testing. The approach to detecting patients attributing positive opiate EIAs to prescription opiates who are using heroin or other opioids will be reviewed. Cases of controlled prescription drugs that do not produce the expected positive urine tests (ex., oxycodone producing negative opiate screening tests) will be discussed. How to differentiate codeine from heroin and the role of poppy seeds in toxicology will be examined. The case of an anti-depressant drug that produces false-positive benzodiazepine results and antibiotics that cause positive opiate urine toxicology results will be reviewed. Common benzodiazepines (ex., clonazepam and lorazepam) that do not reliably produce positive benzodiazepine EIAs will be discussed. The approach to detection and management of all these types of toxicology cases will be reviewed, and it is hoped that the analyses presented will impart an adequate information base to medical providers and staff members of drug treatment and pain centers, enabling them to order and interpret these tests in the clinic more effectively as an integrated part of whole patient care.

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