Addicts stopped using cocaine and stopped craving it after taking an epilepsy medicine, an encouraging step toward a possible new drug treatment.
It was the first test of the medicine in humans for cocaine addiction and involved only 20 addicts, so the work is considered preliminary. The drug has not been approved for use in the United States and can cause vision problems over the long term.
But experts were impressed and said more studies are called for.
Eight of 20 long-term addicts stopped using cocaine and haven’t relapsed for 75 days or more so far, even though they stopped taking the medication a month ago, said psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Brodie.
The drug was paired with psychosocial therapy, and the results are "startlingly good," said Brodie, a professor of psychiatry at New York University and lead study author.
The cocaine study, published online Monday by the journal Synapse, was financed by NYU and the federal government.
Frank Vocci, a treatment expert at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said the new study’s success rate — 8 out of 20 — is comparable to that of other experimental cocaine treatment studies. But he said the prolonged period of abstinence "far exceeds what other pharmacological treatments have achieved."
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