Visual-evoked potential changes in opioid addiction

Abstract

ObjectivesTo assess addiction severity index (ASI) problem rating before and after management and to assess the effect of opioid addiction on neural transmission within the primary visual tract of the brain by using visual-evoked potentials (VEP).BackgroundAn increasing phenomenon of opioid abuse has been demonstrated in Egypt in the last 4 years.Patients and methodsA case–control study was conducted on 100 male patients. Fifty patients with opioid addiction disorder diagnosed according to Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th ed. and 50 volunteers with age and sex matched with the addict group formed the control group. Patients were subjected to history taking, general medical and neurological examination, detection of severity of addiction according to ASI before and after treatment, detection of VEP changes in both groups, addicts (before treatment) and controls, to assess the differences between addict and control groups.ResultThe mean of age addict patients was 34.52 ± 9.09 and the mean age of the control group was 33.50 ± 9.38. There was no significant difference between cases and control. Fifty addict male patients were studied in comparison with the other 50 healthy male controls. Regarding severity of problem areas of ASI before and after treatment, there were highly significant decline in problem ratings on drugs, legal, family/social, and psychological dimensions of the ASI. The only areas without significant decline were medical and employment/functioning. Regarding our VEP findings, there was highly significant difference in P100 latency and P100 amplitude between the studied cases and control groups.ConclusionOpioids became increasingly popular despite the potential harms associated with their use.