[Heroin addiction treated with methadone. Experience in 50 patients]

The authors have reviewed the records of 50 heroin addicts treated with methadone, a drug which, in France, is delivered under strict and daily supervision to only few patients. This retrospective study yielded the following data: (1) the success rate of maintenance treatment with methadone exceeded 50 percent and remained the same in HIV positive patients; (2) social and environmental factors predictive of poor response to methadone were the absence of professional activity at the beginning of treatment and a painfully disturbed family context. A history of trouble with the law was not a factor of poor prognosis. These data raise the problem of importance of an early treatment which might have a strong influence on subsequent developments.