Episode Details

Episode 47: Hearing Carotid Lung.  

Dr Civelli explains the updates on screening for lung cancer, hearing loss and carotid artery stenosis; Kafiya explains the use of bupropion and naltrexone in methamphetamine abuse, question of the month pneumonia.

Introduction: Methamphetamine use
By Kafiya Arte, MS4, and Ariana Lundquist, MD.

Today is April 12, 2021.

Bakersfield, California, has a methamphetamine (meth) epidemic currently ravaging this area. We as health care workers believe we can spot somebody addicted to meth from a mile away by their characteristic “older-than-stated-age” appearance and obvious “meth mouth”. However, the actual scope of the epidemic is much larger. It’s not just people who are experiencing homelessness that are addicted to, and dying from, meth.  I saw while volunteering at a needle exchange at Weill Park, people getting out of nice-looking cars wearing clean, pressed clothes with sharps containers full of used needles ready to exchange. One man even had a teacup poodle in tow. It’s clear that meth can affect anybody.  

Between May 10 and June 10, 2014, 31.8% of randomly selected patients in the ED of Kern Medical admitted to having used methamphetamine at least once in their life. It’s not just the individual who addicted to meth who is affected. 36.1% of children removed from their home by child protective services in Kern County during the month of May 2014 were cases that involved methamphetamine[1]. 

Meth accounted for nearly 75% of all drugs seized by the Bakersfield Police Department[2]. Statewide, meth kills more Californians than any single opioid alone[3]. Amphetamine overdose deaths have increased 212% from 777 in 2012 to 2,427 in 2018 in California. In 2020, Kern County had more than double the rate of deaths related to overdose of psychostimulants, of which meth was the dominant drug, compared to the state of California (20.48/100k residents versus 8.21/100k residents, respectively)[3]. This devastating problem, unfortunately, does not have a currently FDA-approved drug to treat it. 

A promising study called Accelerated Development of Additive Treatment for Methamphetamine Disorder (ADAPT-2), assessed the efficacy of combined bupropion and naltrexone for the treatment of meth use disorder. Bupropion decreases the dysphoria of meth withdrawal that drives continued use; while naltrexone decreases cravings, therefore preventing relapse, as it does with alcohol use disorder.  

A total of 403 participants with nearly daily meth use were included in the two-stage randomized, double blind trial conducted at 8 different sites from May 23, 2017 to July 25, 2019. The efficacy of extended-release injectable naltrexone (380 mg every 3 weeks) combined with once-daily oral extended-release bupropion (450 mg) was evaluated, as compared to placebo.  

The results of the study showed a 13.6% response rate in the naltrexone-bupropion group and only 2.5% response with placebo. A response was defined as at least three meth negative urine samples out of four samples obtained at the end of each of the two stages.  

The trial concluded that although the response rate among participants that received naltrexone and bupropion was low, it was higher than that among participants who received placebo. Although the ADAPT-2 trial did not provide any recommendations that can be adapted to clinical practice, it serves as a starting point for further research of the additive or synergistic effects of bupropion and naltrexone in the treatment of meth use disorder.  

Hopefully, it will also serve as a catalyst for more pioneering research regarding the legitimization of meth use disorder as a treatable disease with major medical, psychiatric, socioeconomic and legal consequences. Clinicians should stay up to date with research regarding meth use disorder such as ADAPT-2, as it is our duty to understand the health crises that aff