A placebo-controlled screening trial of olanzapine, valproate, and coenzyme Q10/L-carnitine for the treatment of cocaine dependence

What Was Tested

Researchers studied L-Carnitine in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 68 subjects taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers, adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

The study was performed at the New York Medications Development Research Unit (MDRU).

All participants met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual version IV (DSM-IV) criteria for cocaine dependence and provided at least two urine samples positive for benzoylecgonine (BE) during the 2-week screening period.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group and pilot study.

The subjects were allocated by chance, so the L-Carnitine group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the subjects and researchers unaware of who received L-Carnitine.

Some subjects received a placebo instead of L-Carnitine, giving a reference point.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the subjects stayed in one arm throughout.

Sixty-eight participants were enrolled with 39 completing the study.

All subjects also received individual cognitive behavioral counseling during treatment.

Primary outcome measures included quantitative urine benzoylecgonine (BE) levels, self-report of drug use, and global impression scores.

Secondary outcomes included cocaine craving, study retention and related psychosocial measures.

Safety measures included adverse event monitoring, vital signs, and extrapyramidal side-effects tests.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Anticonvulsants, Benzodiazepines, Carnitine, Cocaine-Related Disorders, Coenzymes, Olanzapine and Pilot Projects.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of L-Carnitine in 68 subjects.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2005 (Addiction (Abingdon, England)), a journal based in England.

More context: the L-Carnitine compound page, all human trials.