Precautions in the management of opioid agonist therapy: from target population characteristics to new formulations and post-marketing monitoring - a focus on the Italian system.

1 Trend analysis shows a decrease in opioid-related overdose deaths in Italy over the last 10 years (from 84.4% to 69.8%; percentages calculated from the total number of overdose deaths in 2021, excluding deaths from unknown substance); however, despite heroin remaining the main culprit, albeit with a decreasing trend, an increase in mortality from acute methadone intoxication was observed in the last 10 years (from 6.7% to 8.9%), reaching the highest value at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 (14.1%). 1 Opioid agonist therapy (OAT) has been shown to alleviate cravings and withdrawal symptoms in individuals struggling with opioid addiction.

also in 47,180 other papers