A double-blind placebo controlled study of healthy volunteers given a subcutaneous disulfiram implantation

A study was carried out to elicit information of the pharmacological effect of implanted disulfiram (DS). Healthy volunteers were randomized to either of two groups; six were given 1 g DS implant and six subjects placebo (PL) implants. Each participant was subjected to one intravenous ethanol challenge before, and six intravenous ethanol challenges as well as one oral ethanol challenge after the implantation. No clinical signs of disulfiram-ethanol reactions (DER) were observed. The intravenous challenges did not result in any significant differences between pre- and post-implantation values for blood acetaldehyde concentrations in the DS group, and these values were not significantly different from the corresponding values in the PL group. However, somewhat higher blood acetaldehyde concentrations were recorded after an oral ethanol dose (0.8 g/kg) in the DS group. In a longitudinal study with oral ethanol challenges after implanted DS, one of three healthy volunteers had a significant higher blood acetaldehyde concentration three weeks after the implantation, while no such tendency was found in any subject tested earlier or later in the post-implantation period. The blood acetaldehyde levels after oral challenges were, however, far too low to produce a DER.