From Methadone To Laam: New Therapeutic Profiles. Utility Of Therapeutic Monitoring (Tm)

The introduction of LAAM in the treatment of opiates dependence is an important advance that allows to diversify the use of opiates substitutes because, by the moment, methadone had been the only therapy of this type in our country. The objective of this work has been the identification of new profiles of patients for the use of LAAM, taking into account pharmacokinetic issues and possible interactions with other drugs, using the information given by methadone levels in plasma and its possible application to LAAM. At present, the profile for the use of LAAM is limited for stable patients with methadone, with good response to the treatment, in order to make more flexible and to space out the daily dosing. In this article, we propose other profiles of use,as high border programs pointed towards the change to the curing of drug addiction and then going into a free-drug program, and in patients who lose the stability and show opiates withdrawal syndrome, with a decrease of methadone levels in plasma due to drug-drug interactions or other reasons. Other studies with the proposed profiles will be necessary, in order to extend the treatment with LAAM for patients who have clinical problems with methadone, as an alternative treatment, using therapeutic drug monitoring in plasma as an assistance and evaluation tool to improve the effectiveness of these therapies.