ArticleBMJ (Clinical research ed.)2010
Survival and cessation in injecting drug users: prospective observational study of outcomes and effect of opiate substitution treatment.
Article in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 84 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
84 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Effects of medication-assisted treatment on mortality among opioids users: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Molecular psychiatry · 2019Pooled it
- Impact of Opioid Substitution Therapy on Antiretroviral Therapy Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2016Pooled it
- Addiction pharmacogenetics: a systematic review of the genetic variation of the dopaminergic system.Psychiatric genetics · 2015Pooled it
- Neurobehavioral consequences of chronic intrauterine opioid exposure in infants and preschool children: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2014Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Opiate substitution treatment and HIV transmission in people who inject drugs: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2012Pooled it
- Informing the Equitable Implementation of Hepatitis C Interventions: Cost-Effectiveness Modeling in Rural Populations of People Who Inject Drugs.PharmacoEconomics · 2026Article
- Article
- HIV, STI, and Hepatitis Among People Who Inject Drugs at a Sexual Health Clinic in Melbourne, Australia: 2012 to 2022.Open forum infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Sex disparities in outcome of medication-assisted therapy of opioid use disorder: Nationally representative outpatient clinic data.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2025Observational
- Sex disparities in outcome of medication-assisted therapy of opioid use disorder: Nationally representative study.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
- Analysis of the UK Government's 10-Year Drugs Strategy-a resource for practitioners and policymakers.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2023Article
- Modelling the impact and cost-effectiveness of non-governmental organizations on HIV and HCV transmission among people who inject drugs in Ukraine.Journal of the International AIDS Society · 2023Article
- Use, Effects, and Diagnostic Challenges of Cocaine Use in "Baby Boomers" and Older Adults.Journal of Brown hospital medicine · 2023Review
- Ageing and older people who use illicit opioids, cocaine or methamphetamine: a scoping review and literature map.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2022Article
- Stage-of-change Assessment Predicts Short-term Treatment Engagement for Opioid Use Disorder Patients Initiated on Buprenorphine.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2022Article
- Qualitative characterizations of misinformed disclosure reactions to medications for opioid use disorders and their consequences.Journal of substance abuse treatment · 2022Article
- Availability of opioid agonist treatment and critical incidents in Forensic Clinics for Dependency Diseases in Germany.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Modelling the intervention effect of opioid agonist treatment on multiple mortality outcomes in people who inject drugs: a three-setting analysis.The lancet. Psychiatry · 2021Article
24 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesTo examine survival and long term cessation of injecting in a cohort of drug users and to assess the influence of opiate substitution treatment on these outcomes.
designProspective open cohort study.
settingA single primary care facility in Edinburgh.
participants794 patients with a history of injecting drug use presenting between 1980 and 2007; 655 (82%) were followed up by interview or linkage to primary care records and mortality register, or both, and contributed 10,390 person years at risk; 557 (85%) had received opiate substitution treatment.
main outcome measuresDuration of injecting: years from first injection to long term cessation, defined as last injection before period of five years of non-injecting; mortality before cessation; overall survival.
resultsIn the entire cohort 277 participants achieved long term cessation of injecting, and 228 died. Half of the survivors had poor health related quality of life. Median duration from first injection to death was 24 years for participants with HIV and 41 years for those without HIV. For each additional year of opiate substitution treatment the hazard of death before long term cessation fell 13% (95% confidence interval 17% to 9%) after adjustment for HIV, sex, calendar period, age at first injection, and history of prison and overdose. Conversely exposure to opiate substitution treatment was inversely related to the chances of achieving long term cessation.
conclusionsOpiate substitution treatment in injecting drug users in primary care reduces this risk of mortality, with survival benefits increasing with cumulative exposure to treatment. Treatment does not reduce the overall duration of injecting.
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