A study has found that once-weekly dispensing* of buprenorphine and naloxone, combined with psychotherapy and delivered in a doctor's office, were just as effective in treating opiate addiction as providing the doses three times a week with extended weekly counseling, HealthDay News reported July 26.

"We've demonstrated the safety and efficacy of providing this type of treatment in a primary-care setting, and that had never been done before," said study author David A. Fiellin. "We've also identified a moderate or minimum counseling therapy and medication dispensing that is safe and effective."

Fiellin and colleagues assigned 166 opiate-addicted patients to one of three treatment regimens: standard medical management (20 minutes of counseling once a week) with either once-weekly or thrice-weekly medication dispensing, or enhanced medical management (with 45 minutes of counseling) and thrice-weekly medication dispensing. After the 24-week treatment period, researchers found that the three treatments were equally effective in promoting abstinence and retaining clients in treatment, with each judged effective in about 4 of 10 patients.

Fiellin said the results could be credited to the effectiveness of the medication, and said that less contact with patients might actually be beneficial to recovery. "They all felt that a weekly visit was reasonable enough for them," Fiellin said. "For some of these patients, it may be a deterrent if you have them coming in too frequently or attending too much to issues around addiction, especially if they are doing well and are abstinent."

Others, however, noted that the findings might not apply to all subgroups of opioid users, such as those with multiple addictions or co-occurring mental-health disorders.

The study was published in the July 27, 2006 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. 

* Correction, August 3, 2006
As originally published on July 27, the first sentence of this summary erroneously stated that patients received once-weekly and thrice-weekly doses of the medication. Instead, the medication was dispensed to patients either once or three times a week, and patients took it daily in both groups. The error arose from a misreading of ambiguous wording in the original HealthDay report of the study, on which this summary was based.