Loading...
Although benzodiazepines have been the mainstay of drug therapy for alcohol withdrawal, several other medications are receiving increasing attention. Among these drugs is carbamazepine (Tegretol), which is thought to suppress the limbic hyperexcitability that may mediate the withdrawal syndrome.
These researchers compared carbamazepine (200 mg four times a day) and the benzodiazepine oxazepam (30 mg four times a day) in a double-blind study of 86 patients undergoing acute alcohol withdrawal. Outcome measures included a standardized withdrawal-severity index, physiologic and neurologic measurements, self-reported symptom scales, and a scale measuring global psychological distress. For nearly all outcomes, there were no significant differences…