Heroin Assisted Treatment: the case for expanding uptake
HAT has now been evaluated in trials involving a combined total of over 1,500 subjects in seven countries (Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom and Belgium).
30 Oct 2017Dr Alex Wodak puts forward the case to increase uptake of Heroin Assisted Treatment (“HAT”).
The modern era HAT of began in Switzerland in 1994. HAT evolved from heroin maintenance, which had been developed in England decades earlier. Heroin maintenance was evaluated in a trial compared to methadone maintenance with mixed results and published by Hartnoll, Mitcheson and colleagues in 1980. But HAT differed from heroin maintenance in a number of very important ways. HAT involves much higher doses of heroin, patients are involved in selecting their dose, intensive psychosocial assistance is provided, all doses are supervised by health professionals and only treatment refractory, severely heroin dependent subjects are included.
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