Hyperbaric oxygen therapy shows promise for opioid addiction treatment


Date:
April 11, 2022
Source:
Washington State University
Summary:
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy may help people being treated for opioid
addiction reduce their methadone dose and better manage pain and
withdrawal symptoms, according to a pair of recent studies. The
research team recruited participants enrolled in a local opioid
treatment program to test the effects of hyperbaric oxygen therapy,
a treatment that involves breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized
environment.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Hyperbaric oxygen therapy may help people being treated for opioid
addiction reduce their methadone dose and better manage pain and
withdrawal symptoms, according to a pair of studies led by Washington
State University scientists.


==========================================================================
The research team recruited participants enrolled in a local opioid
treatment program to test the effects of hyperbaric oxygen therapy,
a treatment that involves breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized
environment.

Published in the Journal of Addictions Nursing, the first paper describes
a pilot study of 31 participants that showed that those who had received hyperbaric oxygen therapy as part of a planned methadone taper were
able to maintain a significantly larger dose reduction of 4.3 mg three
months after the study, as compared to 0.25 mg in participants who did
not receive the therapy.

They also reported half the level of withdrawal symptoms experienced by
control participants after only one day of hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

"While methadone helps people with opioid addiction get stable and
resume their normal lives, it's still an opioid that they are taking
every day," said study co-author Matthew Layton, a professor in the WSU
Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine and a former opioid treatment program medical director. "About half of people in treatment want to get off
of methadone for various reasons, yet many who have tried have failed
and relapsed. Our findings suggest that hyperbaric oxygen therapy could potentially be used as a non-pharmacological tool to help people step
down their methadone treatment." The second study, which was published
in Pain Management Nursing, was a small randomized controlled trial
of eight participants that looked more closely at withdrawal symptom
relief. It found that participants in the hyperbaric oxygen therapy
treatment group reported lower pain intensity and drug cravings than
control participants who had been given an oxygen mixture equivalent to
room air delivered at normal atmospheric pressure. The researchers also
saw improvements in other outcomes, such as sleep quality and mood.

"While for some the challenge is to get off methadone, others struggle to
stay in treatment early on because finding the right dose to stabilize
symptoms can be difficult to achieve," said first author Marian Wilson,
an associate professor in the WSU College of Nursing and an expert
on pain management and opioid use disorder. "As a result, a lot of
people experience withdrawal symptoms in that adjustment period that
can be severe enough to make them resume illegal drug use or drop out
of treatment." Based on the collective findings from the two studies,
the researchers are pursuing funding for a clinical trial to confirm
their findings in a larger sample of participants, who would be followed
for several years.



==========================================================================
The idea for the two studies came from earlier research by one of the
WSU researchers that showed that hyperbaric oxygen therapy provided pain
relief and reduced physical signs of opioid withdrawal in mice.

"We were anxious to see if it would work in people," said study co-author Raymond Quock, a professor in the WSU College of Arts and Sciences,
who led that work.

If their findings hold up in a larger clinical trial, hyperbaric oxygen
therapy could become a non-pharmacological tool that providers can use
to help people manage pain and potentially reduce their opioid use.

"Last year, over 100,000 people died as a result of the opioid epidemic
within the COVID-19 pandemic," said Layton. "That shows us that opioid addiction is still a very big problem, and we need to have better ways
to approach it." In addition to Layton, Wilson, Quock and others at
WSU, collaborators on these studies included Karen Stanek, the medical
director for the Spokane Hyperbaric Center and Alvina Jesse, a program
manager with the Spokane Regional Health District.

Funding for this work came from the State of Washington's Initiative
Measure No. 171, which was administered through the university's Alcohol
and Drug Abuse Research Program.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Washington_State_University. Original written by Judith Van Dongen. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Marian Wilson, Tamara Odom-Maryon, Karen Stanek, Trevor Roush,
Joseph
Muriungi, Alvina Jesse, Raymond M. Quock, Matthew Layton. Hyperbaric
Oxygen to Assist Adults With Opioid Use Disorder in Reducing
Methadone Dose. Journal of Addictions Nursing, 2022; 33 (1):
27 DOI: 10.1097/ JAN.0000000000000447 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220411101401.htm

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