Treatment of opioid dependence in adolescents and young adults with extended release naltrexone: preliminary case-series and feasibility

Background Opioid dependence is an increasing problem among adolescents and young adults, but in contrast to the standard in the adult population, adoption of pharmacotherapies has been slow. Extended-release naltrexone (XR-NTX) is a promising treatment that has been receiving increasing interest for adult opioid dependence. Clinical chart abstractions were performed on a convenience sample of 16 serial adolescent and young adult cases (mean age 18.5 years) treated for opioid dependence with XR-NTX who attended at least one out-patient clinical follow-up visit. Case descriptions Of these 16 cases, 10 of 16 (63%) were retained in treatment for at least 4 months and nine of 16 (56%) had a 'good' outcome defined as having substantially decreased opioid use, improvement in at least one psychosocial domain and no new problems due to substance use. Conclusions These descriptive results suggest that XR-NTX in the treatment of adolescents and young adults with opioid dependence is well tolerated over a period of 4 months and feasible in a community-based treatment setting, and associated with good outcomes in a preliminary, small non-controlled case-series. This probably reflects an overall trend towards greater adoption of medication treatments for this population.