Jessica Merlin published a perspective piece on methadone and cancer treatment in the New England Journal of Medicine

Pitt researchers advocated for health equity for people with opioid use disorder (OUD) in a perspective piece published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Nov. 25.

Senior author Jessica Merlin, director of Pitt’s Challenges in Managing and Preventing Pain Clinical Research Center, and colleagues used a patient experience to highlight flaws in the current system, which they suggest the Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act (H.R. 1359) could improve.

The case they describe involves a patient who had long used methadone to successfully manage his OUD, but whose addiction treatment was derailed when he was diagnosed with head and neck cancer and his oncologist prescribed oxycodone, an opioid, for cancer pain. The methadone clinic revoked his privileges for taking his medication at home, requiring him to make daily visits to get methadone, while needing to drive in the opposite direction to receive chemotherapy and radiation.

“Undergoing cancer care while engaged in the methadone-clinic system is like juggling two full-time jobs,” Merlin and colleagues write. A patient’s care “should align with his priorities by encompassing continuing successful treatment of both his OUD and his other medical problems. Current methadone treatment regulations make it impossible to achieve that goal.”