Treatment Detoxification Outcomes

A high fatality rate associated with this disease suggests that the effectiveness of conservative and surgical treatment is not sufficient in the case of acute pancreatitis. New methods of extracorporeal detoxification using hemoperfusion over carbon sorbents has made it possible to improve the outcome of pancreatitis treatment. However, hemosorption leads to only a transient decrease in blood proteolytic activity and does not correct the imbalance in the protease-inhibitor system, and the carbon hemosorbents are nonspecific. The development and application of antiprotease hemosorbents with specific bioligands therefore has potential in pancreatitis treatment. 

Outcomes in time-limited methadone treatment have generally been found to be very poor in comparison with maintenance (McGlothin Anglin 1981, Gossop et al. 2001, Magura Rosenblum 2001), although the early influential studies were typically in established maintenance candidates who had treatment restricted, rather than individuals who chose to reduce as an option within a flexible policy. For our purposes this intermediate duration of treatment, which now applies just as much to buprenorphine, is classed as slow detoxification, and is discussed in the section on detoxification from the two medications. 

Eklund C, Melin L, Hiltunen A Borg S (1994). Detoxification from methadone maintenance treatment in Sweden long-term outcome and effects on quality of life and life situation. The International Journal of the Addictions, 29, 627-45... 

Horspool MJ, Seivewright N, Armitage CJ, Mathers N. Post-treatment outcomes of buprenorphine detoxification in community settings a systematic review. Eur Addict Res 2008 14(4) 179-85. 

---