Reformulated OxyContin Decreases Oral and Non-oral Abuse With Potential Opioid Abusers
Posted on June 6, 2012Dr. Ryan A. Black and his colleagues in Newton, Massachusetts recently conducted an experiment to observe individuals trying the new reformulated tablets of OxyContin, or ORF, and found that their abuse dropped by almost 50 percent.
According to a recent article, the participants were tested over an 11 month period to assess their changes in oxycodone abuse with "before" and "after" scenarios. The new reformulated tablets contain physiochemical barriers to eliminate crushing or dissolving done by abusers, especially through non-oral means of administering.
Participants were given an interview that was administered by the computer in order to plan for their 30 day treatment program. The study was presented at the 31st Annual American Pain Society’s Scientific Meeting.
The program collected and then reported self-data over the 30 day period. There were over 67,000 assessments collected in the before period and 12,035 of them reported abuse of prescription opioids.
2,835 reported oxycodone HCI controlled release abuse. The after period of 37,465 assessments showed 7.233 abused prescription opioids and 786 abuse ORFs. The majority was Caucasian male respondents and had never been married.
Their average age was 33.9 years. Black reported that over half of respondents, and almost 41 percent of those that reported any opioid abuse in the last 30 days, were entered in drug rehab treatments from the criminal justice system.
The researchers concluded that the frequency of abuse from reformulated oxycodone of HCI controlled release tablets seems to be stabilized but follow up is needed over a longer term to see how long the reduced abuse is sustained.
The largest amounts of individuals were employed in jobs that involved skilled and semi-skilled labor pools. When the before and after scenarios were compared there was a 49 percent drop in individuals that abused oxycodone HCI controlled release with opioid prescription abusers.
