Methadone Intoxication and Death is a New Disaster |Biomedgrid

Methadone was synthesized in Germany from 1937 to 1939 [1, 2] and approved in the United States in 1947. [1] Methadone is the most effectiveness which is used in OMT programs [2] and was on the World Health Organization's (WHO) List of Essential Medicines [1, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Methadone treatment programs has been recommended 80 mg daily dose and 0.4 mg/L blood concentration which is very good. [6, 7, 8] The effects of methadone were 8 to 36 hours [1, 3]. The EDDP or 2-ethylidene-1, 5-dimethyl-3, 3-diphenylpyrrolidine, the principle metabolite of methadone, is one of evidence to diagnose the cause of death [9]. The mean blood concentration ratio of methadone to EDDP was 13.6:1 [10]. Respiratory failure, prolonged QT interval, cardiac arrhythmia are caused of death [1, 11, 12]. Benzodiazepines, especially Alprazolam, was the most common combined drugs in methadone intoxication and death [13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19].