ECT Final Rule

My position on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is that it is a safe and effective treatment for severe depression, bipolar depression, and catatonia.  It is typically used in the case of treatment resistant depression or acute life threatening psychiatric disorders. In the era prior to modern psychiatric treatment food and water refusal, extreme agitation, uncontrolled aggression, and suicidal behavior all occurred and resulted in excessive mortality. In the case of delirious mania or catatonia, the mortality was estimated as high as 80%.  In the acute care setting where I worked we established a practice where two or three physicians in the group specialized in ECT.  That was done initially because the malpractice premiums were higher for ECT practitioners.  As time went by we were told that from and insurance perspective the risk associated with ECT was not any greater than standard psychiatric practice and all of the premiums became the same.  From an actuarial standpoint ECT was considered a safe procedure.

From a cultural perspective ECT is a highly stigmatized treatment.  There are very few movies where the public gets a realistic perspective of how it is used. More typically it is presented as a punishment or torture rather than a safe and effective medical treatment.  The people I see in consultation are surprised to hear that it is still in use.

Sometime in about 2011, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided to start an initiative about reclassifying ECT devices from Class III (high risk) to Class II (low risk) medical devices.  In their classification system for medical devices, Class III is the most restrictive because it requires premarket approval.  Class II is less restrictive because it can be approved with special controls or recommended measures to mitigate risk.  Class I is least restrictive and requires general controls.  The reason why the FDA initiated this reclassification attempt in 2011 is unclear to me.  The reason why it initially failed is fairly common knowledge. The antipsychiatry movement has been against ECT since before the time of Breggin's protest (1) in the New England Journal of Medicine over a book review by Mandel (2) that discredited his negative assessment of ECT.  A quote from Mandel's review from 40 years ago:

"Dr. Breggin's arguments fail because he uses supporting data uncritically and inaccurately. At a time when reasoned discourse and scientific exchange concerning ECT are needed, he simply calls for the abolition of the treatment on the basis of his personal conclusions. A critical reader will find this book of interest only as an example of how the fires of controversy can be fanned by emotion."

Any time I have attempted to debate the merits of ECT in a public forum (like Twitter) there is a generally trend among the antipsychiatrists to jump on whatever I say and with quote Breggin's book or post links to his dated and inaccurate work.  Irrespective of how the FDA initiative started it did offer some hope that a neutral federal agency could put some of this controversy to rest.

The FDA came out with the Final order on the reclassification of ECT devices on December 26, 2018.  As far as I can tell there was no fanfare.  Deflating controversy typically has that effect.  It took me about three hours to read through the document and it was a very interesting read.  The FDA used various sources to look at the issues of what they abbreviate as SE or safety and effectiveness.  They go though their decision making systematically including a section at the end where they address criticisms of ECT. the FDA, and in some cases professional organizations that suggest ECT is safe and effective like the American Psychiatric Association (APA).  The FDA gives an unequivocal response to these questions "The FDA disagrees with ......."

There is a very interesting section on the most controversial aspect of ECT - memory loss.  I have excerpted the studies and FDA summary statements in the table below:

Reference	FDA Comments (excerpted)
Fernie, G., et al., ‘‘Detecting Objective and Subjective Cognitive Effects of Electroconvulsive Therapy: Intensity, Duration and Test Utility in a Large Clinical Sample.’’ Psychological Medicine, 2014. 44(14): pp. 2985–2994.	Overall, the application of ECT had reversible cognitive deficiencies compared to preECT treatment scores, a measure of safety, and in some assessments (CANTAB, subjective reports of memory function, and MMSE) showed patient improvement.
Kirov, G.G., et al., ‘‘Evaluation of Cumulative Cognitive Deficits from Electroconvulsive Therapy.’’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 2016. 208(3): pp. 266–270.	Not all subjects were capable of performing all tests and parts of the battery changed over time. Results (linear mixed regression analyses) demonstrated that age, severity of depression at the time of testing, and number of days since the last ECT session were the major factors affecting cognitive performance, but the total number of previous ECT sessions did not have a measurable impact on cognitive performance, which further supports the safety of ECT in not leading to cumulative cognitive deficits.
Maric, N.P., et al., ‘‘The Acute and Medium-Term Effects of Treatment with Electroconvulsive Therapy on Memory in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder.’’ Psychological Medicine, 2016. 46(4): pp. 797–806.	At the same time, the neuropsychological tests did not detect any significant memory impairment and showed improvement on visual memory and learning at 1 month and in the immediate post-treatment period, indicating no prolonged or significant ECT-related memory deficits. These improvements correlated with improvement in depression while serious adverse events were not reported.
Spaans, H.P., et al., ‘‘Efficacy and Cognitive Side Effects After Brief Pulse and Ultrabrief Pulse Right Unilateral Electroconvulsive Therapy for Major Depression: A Randomized, DoubleBlind, Controlled Study.’’ Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 2013. 74(11): pp. e1029–1036.	No significant difference was seen in retrograde amnesia between the two treatment groups. Change in recall performance and fluency tests were also similar between the two groups. There was not a significant difference in performance in the cognitive tests following ECT for any of the cognitive tests during the course of study. The authors also reported mitigating adverse effects on cognition by lengthening the time between treatments to provide patients with more time to recuperate, thereby further characterizing how ECT treatment can be applied safely.
Ghaziuddin, N., et al., ‘‘Cognitive Side Effects of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Adolescents.’’ Journal of Child Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 2000. 10(4): pp. 269–276	The comparison of pre-ECT and the immediate post-ECT testing demonstrated significant impairments of concentration and attention, verbal and visual-delayed recall, and verbal fluency. A complete recovery of these functions was noted in the cognitive testing conducted at 8.5 months. There was no deficit in the ability to problem solve during the initial or the subsequent testing. Cognitive parameters found to be impaired during the first few days of ECT were recovered over several months following the treatment. Therefore, there was no evidence of long-term damage to concentration, attention, verbal and visual memory, or verbal fluency. There were also no impairments of motor strength and executive processing, even during the early (within 7 to 10 days) post-ECT period.

The FDA considered over 400 scientific papers for this reclassification of ECT.  The examples of their conclusory statements about memory related problems in the table above is consistent with clinical practice. They are careful to point out that there are reports of some people who state they have had some permanent memory loss but they do not get into the potential explanations for that phenomenon. They emphasize that the FDA's role is to comment on safety and efficacy and not purported neurobiological mechanisms.

There is an extensive comments section where the FDA summarizes arguments from hundreds of comments and answers them definitively. Many of these comments are right out of the antipsychiatry playbook.  Consider the comment below from page page 66113.  This is a direct excerpt from the Federal Register:

(Comment 8) Several comments indicated that ECT should be banned. Several comments characterized ECT as inhumane. Commenters indicated that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment February 16, 2013, defined ECT without consent as torture.

(Response 8) FDA disagrees that ECT should be banned. Section 516 of the FD&C Act (21 U.S.C. 360f) authorizes FDA to ban a device when, based on all available data and information, FDA finds that the device ‘‘presents substantial deception or an unreasonable and substantial risk of illness or injury.’’ During review of the scientific evidence, FDA did not identify sufficient evidence to ban ECT. FDA determined that special controls, in combination with general controls, can mitigate the identified risks of ECT for certain intended uses and mitigate risks associated with ECT use. FDA determined that there is a reasonable assurance of SE for ECT treatment for the identified indications for use and patient populations. Therefore, FDA has determined that ECT does not present substantial deception or an unreasonable and substantial risk of illness or injury

The FDA in its disagreement with most of these negative comments - is in line with psychiatric practice and the obvious facts that if ECT was ineffective or resulted in significant injury - psychiatrists would not be using it or doing more extensive research on similar neurostimulation techniques to make neuromodulation as noninvasive and effective as possible.

All things considered this was a very positive statement about ECT. The FDA points out the limitations of their regulatory scope.  For example, even though they did not include an extensive list of conditions as indications for ECT - they acknowledge that once a device is approved it can be used for off-label conditions. They are also careful to point out that they are not endorsing ECT as the treatment of choice for the named conditions and it is never used that way. Their regulatory language specifies  "treatment resistant" and "require rapid response" as specifying the clinical population for which ECT benefits out weigh the risks.

I don't see psychiatrists having any problem with that language since that is the population we have always used this modality for.


George Dawson, MD, DFAPA



References:

1: Breggin PR. Electroconvulsive therapy for depression. N Engl J Med. 1980 Nov27;303(22):1305-6. PubMed PMID: 7421975.

2: Mandel MR.  Electroshock: Its brain-disabling effects (book review). August 14, 1980
N Engl J Med 1980; 303:402 DOI: 10.1056/NEJM198008143030721.

3: Food and Drug Administration, HHS. Neurological Devices; Reclassification of Electroconvulsive Therapy Devices; Effective Date of Requirement for Premarket Approval for Electroconvulsive Therapy Devices for Certain Specified Intended Uses. Final order. Fed Regist. 2018 Dec 26;83(246):66103-24. PubMed PMID:30596410.

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Supplementary:

Brandolini's Law is well illustrated by the tactics used by antipsychiatrists in any public forum. In an ideal world the FDA document would be the definitive word on ECT.  I am not that optimistic but encourage people to bookmark this place in the Federal Register and refer to it if you see heated debates about ECT, especially where it is being portrayed as being toxic and/or ineffective.

Package Insert For Epidiolex - Does It Suggest A Problem With Medical Cannabis?

Cannabidiol (C₂₁H₃₀O₂)

Epidiolex was approved by the FDA two weeks ago for Lennox-Gastaut syndrome or Dravet syndrome in patients 2 years of age and older.  Epidiolex is cannabidiol (abbreviated CBD) one of several compounds in the plant Cannabis sativa.   I had a previous post on this compound but that was before the package insert came out.  I like to study package inserts of all of the pharmaceuticals I encounter to prevent unexpected side effects, anticipate drug interactions, look at the current prescribing recommendations, and study all of the safety considerations.  Every drug has a section in that package insert about the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and considerations in the case of hepatic or renal impairment.  In some cases there are very specific recommendations for dosing with metabolic impairment or potential drug-drug interactions.  The other interesting aspect in this case is that Epidiolex is considered the first botanical extract to be FDA approved and the first cannabis derived compound.  A significant part of the population considers cannabis to be a benign natural product with none of the usual pharmaceutical concern about organ toxicity and drug interactions.

Reading the actual package insert a few things jump out at me today.  The original indications are the same, but the logical question is whether this medication will be used for off labeling prescribing for other indications.  After hearing one of the top epileptologists  in state talk about the use of cannabinoids for epilepsy, there is also the question of whether the diagnosis is correct.  In that lecture he pointed out that a case example in the news media probably did not have the diagnosis and that the expert in the state who could make that diagnosis was not consulted.

The dosing of the drug is fairly robust going from 5 mg/kg/day up to 20 mg/kg/day.  For a 70 kg man that comes out to a max dose of 1400 mg/day putting it in the range of several other anticonvulsants from different classes.

There are warnings about hepatotoxicity.  Early in the document, it states that some patients will experience elevated liver function tests and in some cases with develop overt side effects leading to drug discontinuation.  Baseline screening is recommended with AST, ALT, and total bilirubin.  Patients with elevated baseline transaminases were more likely to experience further elevation of these tests than those subjects with no baseline elevation.  The Child Pugh classification of severity of liver disease is used as a metric with dose adjustments suggested for mild, moderate, and severe disease.

Thirteen percent of patients had ALT elevations that were three times the upper limit of normal (ULN).  Less than 1% had transaminases that were 20 times the ULN and some patients were hospitalized.  In a third of the cases the transaminase elevation resolved without treatment.  In the other two thirds it resolved with discontinuation of the Epidiolex or the associated anticonvulsant (valproate).

Risk factors (associated drugs - clobazam, valproate), dose, and baseline transaminases) were discussed as well as monitoring.  Given the prevalence of the problem screening transaminases at 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months and as indicated after that.  More importantly - screening for the physical illness from drug induced liver disease ("explained nausea, vomiting, right upper quadrant abdominal pain, fatigue, anorexia, or jaundice and/or dark urine") can lead to further evaluation.  Three scenarios for discontinuing the Epidiolex are recommended:

1.  Transaminase levels greater than 3 times the ULN.

2.  Bilirubin levels greater than 2 times the ULN.

3.  Transaminase levels greater than 5 times the ULN. 

My read of the difference between 1 and 3 is that 1 can be a temporary measure but 3 should be permanent.  In my experience with valproate, I would definitely discontinue with these levels.  That is based on the well validated concern that valproate can cause significant hepatotoxicity. It is still possible that additional trials and post marketing surveillance will show that there is not long term concern with CBD.  In the trials transaminase elevation was the most frequent reason that the drug was discontinued (24% versus 3% on placebo).

Drug interactions noted that could be clinically significant. Epidiolex is metabolized by  CYP3A4 and CYP2C19 so that inhibitors of these enzymes can potentially increase the plasma levels.  Strong inhibitors of CYP3A4 include HIV antivirals, antifungals, and buprenorphine.  There are no strong CYP2C19 inhibitors.

Inducers of the same enzymes can lower Epidiolex levels and the standard inducers of those enzymes are carbamazepine, oxcarbazapine, phenytoin, HIV antivirals, prednisone and glucocorticoids, and St. John's Wort. 

Additional warnings about the use of the drug include somnolence and sedation (32%), suicidal ideation and behavior, hypersensitivity reactions, and the risk of withdrawing an anticonvulsant and need to do it gradually.   Regarding the suicidal ideation and behavior the only data presented was from a large (N=199) pooled analysis of clinical trials.  It is a standard warning on all anticonvulsant drugs and there was nothing specific to Epidiolex or CBD.

Clearly Epidiolex or CBD extracted and used at pharmaceutical doses may have some of the power of pharmaceuticals but also has the same significant side effects.  The side effect profile and drug interaction concerns are very similar to other pharmaceuticals that are used to treat epilepsy. This raises some interesting issues in states like Minnesota where high potency extracts of cannabis are being sold as medical cannabis and there is minimal medical supervision - primarily because there is scant evidence that cannabis extracts are medical treatments.  As I previously observed from the most recent report of the Minnesota medical cannabis program, extracts are being sold in this state that result in the ingestion of 12.2 - 1,439.2 mg/day of CBD.  The middle to high end of that range is clearly in the dose range for Epidiolex and the extracts are not prescribed or monitored by physicians - at least there is no requirement for that to happen.  Looking at all of the available data it is clear that the person taking 1,439.2 mg/day is an outlier and the next cluster of patients is at the 100-200 mg/day range. 

In Minnesota, a medical provider certifies a patient as having a condition that qualifies them for medical cannabis. In the case of this report it is chronic pain.  That patient goes to a medical cannabis dispensary and discusses what they want with a pharmacist.  In the case of high CBD products, as far as I know there is no recommended screening, monitoring, or patient education.  Just based on what I read in the current Epidiolex package insert, if the CBD content of the medical cannabis is in a similar dose range that is the equivalent of taking a new pharmaceutical and making it an over the counter drug.  The neurologists prescribing Epidiolex have good guidance on what needs to be monitored and are undoubtedly very familiar with the compound.  Other physicians including psychiatrists need an awareness of the pharmacology of CBD - especially if the dose is in the range suggested by this package insert.

If it was needed, this seems like further evidence that the miracle of medical cannabis has affected the judgment of many who seem to consider it a benign natural product. It turns out in this case, it can have a therapeutic effect on specific seizures at a significant dose for conditions that did not have many good options.  That treatment comes with clear risks.  The risk is reduced since all of the patients treated for the indicated seizure disorders are being followed by neurologists who specialize in the polypharmacy necessary to treat complex seizure disorders.  That includes monitoring potential drug interactions and toxic effects.  Can we say the same thing for people obtaining it through the medical cannabis program or being prescribed the drug off label?

Medical cannabis needs to be taken as seriously for the side effects as it does for the purported benefits.


George Dawson, MD, DFAPA


Reference:

Full Prescribing Information for Epidiolex. FDA approved package insert.


Supplementary 1:

Any FDA package insert is available online by Googling:  "[Drug name] FDA Package Insert"   The PDF of that drug insert will pop up and you will have access to same the full prescribing information that any physician has.

Supplementary 2:

In Minnesota, there are two companies that are the exclusive providers of non-smokable medical cannabis products Leafline Labs and Minnesota Medical Solutions.  Actual THC and CBD content is available on the web sites of both companies.

Leafline Labs has a vaporization product, a sublingual spray, an oral suspension, and a topical preparation.  The highest concentration of CBD in the oral solution is 20 mg/ml.  Epidiolex is 100 mg/ml.

Minnesota Medical Solutions has similar delivery forms and their oral products are capsules and solutions in both 47.5 mg CBD or 100 mg per milliliter CBD.  The latter is the same as prescription strength Epidiolex.

First FDA Approved Cannabis Product - Epidiolex

Cannabidiol (CBD)

Headlines yesterday were that the FDA Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee approved a cannabis product for the treatment of seizures.  The draft agenda for that meeting is available on the FDA web site but no vote or minutes of the meeting.  This has been a widely hyped application of medical cannabis since the term was first used to try to start the legalization of cannabis products.  Ironically the first example of a patient used as an example for this application did not have the syndrome in question.

At the  time I am typing this post there is no FDA approved package insert for the compound and no prescribing information available on the manufacturer's website.  There is a considerable amount of detail in the patent that is available online.  The patent focuses on the use of cannabidiol in treatment resistant epilepsy including Dravet syndrome; myoclonic absence seizures or febrile infection related epilepsy syndrome (FIRES). The patient states that when  cannabidiol is used for these disorders the total reduction in seizure frequency is 50-70% but as high as 90-100%.  The product is formulated to be used separately or with other anti-epileptic drugs (AED).  The patent suggests that the formulation is comprised of highly purified cannabidiol extract (98% w/w) with most of the psychoactive components - tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) removed.

The epidemiology and treatment of epilepsy especially Dravet's syndrome is reviewed in the patent.  It is clear from that data that there are no good treatments for these disorders and that conventional AEDs are partially effective at best.  The four treatment scenarios (non of which are randomized controlled clinical trials) all demonstrate efficacy for CBD in intractable epilepsy.  These results are included in the table below.

Trials	Treatment	General Response	Best Response
N=27 children and young adults Dx: severe childhood onset treatment resistant epilepsy (TRE)	Initial dose: CBD 5mg/kg/day titrated to a max of 25 mg/kg/day in addition to baseline AEDs	-after 3 months of therapy, 48% of patients had an equal to or greater than >50% reduction in seizures. -	- 2 patients were seizure free at three months - 6 patients had a 90% reduction in seizures at three months
N=9 children and young adults with treatment-resistant Dravet syndrome	- as above	- after 3 months of therapy, 56% of patients had an equal to or greater than 50% reduction in seizures,	- 2 patient were seizure free at three months -3 patients has a 90% reduction of seizures at three months
N=4 patients with myoclonic absence seizures who were taking at least two concomitant anti-epileptic drugs	-as above	after 3 months of therapy, 2 of the patients had an equal to or greater than 50% reduction in seizures, 1 patient (25%) had a 90% reduction at the three month stage.	-0 patients were  seizure free -1 patients with a 90% reduction of seizures at three months
N=3 patients with FIRES (febrile infection related epilepsy syndrome)	-as above	- 2/3 children has a 90% reduction in seizures	-2/3 children had a 90% reduction in seizures and regained some motor and intellectual functioning.

In these studies no patients were withdrawn because of side effects.  Common adverse events were somnolence, fatigue, decreased appetite, increased appetite and diarrhea.  Given the degree of polypharmacy it is probably difficult to determine what side effects are due to CBD and either the other compounds or interactions with the other compounds.   All patients had severe epilepsy with hundreds to thousands of seizures per month and in many cases required episodic aggressive treatment to stop status epilepticus.  In this population, placebo response would be expected to be very low.  The use of CBD in this population could easily be justified on a compassionate use basis because of illness severity and the lack of any severe complications from the CBD.  The results of these open label trials appear to be complied in reference 1.  Some of the authors have also published a review and  randomized, placebo controlled dose ranging study of the safety of CBD.  I cannot imagine that there was not an efficacy arm to that study.  There is also a 2017 commentary that looks at the general question about whether there is adequate evidence that CBD is effective for epilepsy(4).

A mysterious part of the patent process is that this is a simple organic chemistry extraction of CBD from cannabis plants and then resuspending for oral dosing.  The authors specify that THC is essentially removed.  The dosing is done in a standard mg/kg dose that would be expected for any medication. That dose range appears to be part of the patient. Does this patent mean that any CBD extracted from cannabis is the intellectual property of this company or is there more to it than that?  If that is the case then any product with a CBD/THC ratio could be patented and there are currently 11 of these compounds prepared by a similar extraction process in the Minnesota Medical Cannabis Program.  Is each one of these compounds patentable? Or is there some additional information about the formulation that is not included in the patent that would make this formulation more unique? At one point the patent states that the CBD can be synthesized as well as extracted.

The market for this product is potentially significant, if it works in less severe forms of epilepsy. Will it work for example in the case of a person who has a few seizures per month after their AEDs have been optimized?  Can that person take the necessary dose of CBD and not experience significant side effects?  Will the company or other companies try to get another FDA approved indication for CBD related products from the FDA? I suspect the standard will be higher in patients where there are compounds of equal or better efficacy.  Will physicians prescribe CBD derived drugs off-label to people requesting them for philosophical reasons (eg. I want to be treated with a substance derived from a botanical)?  Will the positive effects noted in these small trials persist as more and more people with epilepsy are exposed to the drug?  Will there be more significant side effects with post marketing surveillance and maintenance use? There are still a significant number of people who do not appear to respond very well to CBD.  Those are some of the questions I had considering the implications of this product release.

On theoretical grounds, a key question is whether the utility of this compound in severe epilepsy will lead to additional drug discovery of more compounds for this difficult to treat problem.  For now, the FDA has made a sound decision getting this compound into the hands of the physicians who treat these disorders on a day to day basis.


George Dawson, MD, DFAPA


References:


1:  Devinsky O, Marsh E, Friedman D, Thiele E, Laux L, Sullivan J, Miller I, Flamini R, Wilfong A, Filloux F, Wong M, Tilton N, Bruno P, Bluvstein J, Hedlund J, Kamens R, Maclean J, Nangia S, Singhal NS, Wilson CA, Patel A, Cilio MR. Cannabidiol in patients with treatment-resistant epilepsy: an open-label interventional trial. Lancet Neurol. 2016 Mar;15(3):270-8. doi: 10.1016/S1474-4422(15)00379-8. Epub 2015 Dec 24. Erratum in: Lancet Neurol. 2016 Apr;15(4):352. PubMed PMID: 26724101.

2:  O'Connell BK, Gloss D, Devinsky O. Cannabinoids in treatment-resistant epilepsy: A review. Epilepsy Behav. 2017 May;70(Pt B):341-348. doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2016.11.012. Epub 2017 Feb 8. Review. PubMed PMID: 28188044.

3: Devinsky O, Patel AD, Thiele EA, Wong MH, Appleton R, Harden CL, Greenwood S, Morrison G, Sommerville K; GWPCARE1 Part A Study Group. Randomized, dose-ranging safety trial of cannabidiol in Dravet syndrome. Neurology. 2018 Apr 3;90(14):e1204-e1211. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000005254. Epub 2018 Mar 14. PubMedPMID: 29540584

4:  Perucca E. Cannabinoids in the Treatment of Epilepsy: Hard Evidence at Last? J Epilepsy Res. 2017 Dec 31;7(2):61-76. doi: 10.14581/jer.17012. eCollection 2017 Dec. Review. PubMed PMID: 29344464.

5:  FDA Briefing Document Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee Meeting April 19, 2018 NDA 210365Cannabidiol

An Unusual Molecule

Fenethylline

In the course of addiction practice it is common to run across unusual compounds typically being used for their intoxicating properties.  That happened to me recently when I encountered the compound fenethylline.  Fenethylline was apparently invented for use as a stimulant in Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder and some of the conditions that were precursors to this diagnosis.  I have read a lot of that literature and had never encountered it.  The interesting property of this chemical is that it is cleaved in vivo to theophylline and amphetamine.  Theophylline is one of a class of coumpounds called methyl xanthines that most physicians in my era were familiar with from the treatment of asthma and exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.  They proved to be weak medications and although some sources list them as tertiary agents today use is not very likely.  This medication is proof that medicine evolves based on what happens with real world applications.  This pill for the most part has been replaced by inhaled corticosteroids alone or inhaled corticosteroids in combination with long acting inhaled beta agonist medications.  Theophylline is a non-addicting medication that can produce side effects very similar to excessive caffeine use in a number of patients.

Amphetamine is different and is in a number of preparations for ADHD.  Many of these preparations are FDA approved for that application.  Amphetamine is a potentially addicting drug and is a Schedule II N stimulant on the schedule of controlled substances indicating a high high potential for abuse or dependence.  Fenethylline is a Schedule I compound meaning that there is no accepted medical use, high risk for abuse and a lack of safety when used under medical supervision.  It has been a Schedule I compound since 1981.

In the medical literature problems with fenethylline were noted as early as the the 1960s with the first paper on addiction published in 1965 (1).  It was apparently synthesized in 1961.  It was listed as a substance of concern by the World Health Organization in 1986 (2).  There was a paper the same year pointing out that it had been in use for 21 years at that point and it appeared to have less abuse potential than amphetamine. More recent case reports have been published on the issue of psychosis and myocardial infarction from using the drug.  The real issue that has surfaced in the last several years has been the addictive potential and the use of revenues generated from this drug being used to fund terrorist operations and possibly the war in Syria.

Van Hout and Wells (7) track the illicit manufacture of fenethylline and synthetic amphetamine type stimulants (ATS) in the Middle East.  The manufacture of Captagon ( a former brand name for fenethylline) started in the early 2000s in Southeastern Europe and it was transported to the Arabian Peninsula.  The name branded medication did not contain fenethylline but an array of amphetamine and caffeine like stimulants as well as antibiotics.  Lebanon became a major supplier of the drug but eventually Syria took over in about 2013.  In 2015 about 48 million pills of Captagon were confiscated en route from Syria to various Middle Eastern locations.

The Captagon tablets themselves sell for $3 to $20 each and are thought to serve two purposes - a stimulant for soldiers engaged in the military who need to be alert and aggressive and as a revenue source for funding the war.  They are widely available on the Arabian Peninsula.

A brief review of the pharmacology of fenethylline (6) suggests that the compound is more lipid soluble and have better brain access than amphetamine products.  All of the currently available medical sources seem to suggest that it is less toxic than amphetamine, but also considerably weaker.  The literature is limited but the reasons for why it has attained a great deal of value in the Middle East do not seem perfectly clear.  The rationale for synthesizing the original compound is also not very clear.  There has always been some folklore that methylxanthines like caffeine and theophylline would have a stimulant like effect on persons with ADHD.  Reviews of that phenomenon have found very little to back it up (8,9).          

I post this here as another curious note in terms of another addictive drug that appears to be unique to a certain part of the world.  As usual, wherever an addictive compound is found there will be people there to profit from it.      

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA



References:




1: Grahmann H, Reimer F.  Captagon as an addicting drug.  Nervenarzt.  1965 May; 36: 227-8. German. PubMed PMID: 14305717.

2: Keup W. Use, indications and distribution in different countries of thestimulant and hallucinogenic amphetamine derivatives under consideration by WHO. Drug Alcohol Depend. 1986 Jun;17(2-3):169-92. PubMed PMID: 2874968.

3: Kristen G, Schaefer A, von Schlichtegroll A. Fenetylline: therapeutic use,misuse and/or abuse. Drug Alcohol Depend. 1986 Jun;17(2-3):259-71. PubMed PMID: 3743408.

4: Al-Imam A, Santacroce R, Roman-Urrestarazu A, Chilcott R, Bersani G, Martinotti G, Corazza O. Captagon: use and trade in the Middle East. Hum Psychopharmacol. 2016 Oct 21. doi: 10.1002/hup.2548. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 27766667. 

5: Khanra S, Sen S. Pharmacoterrorism: We should be worried. Asian J Psychiatr. 2016 Aug;22:83. doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2016.05.002. PubMed PMID: 27520902. 

6: Katselou M, Papoutsis I, Nikolaou P, Qammaz S, Spiliopoulou C, Athanaselis S. Fenethylline (Captagon) Abuse - Local Problems from an Old Drug Become Universal. Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol. 2016 Aug;119(2):133-40. doi: 10.1111/bcpt.12584. Review. PubMed PMID: 27004621. 

7: Van Hout MC, Wells J. Is Captagon (fenethylline) helping to fuel the Syrian conflict? Addiction. 2016 Apr;111(4):748-9. doi: 10.1111/add.13262. PubMed PMID: 26787140.

8: Hughes JR, Hale KL. Behavioral effects of caffeine and other methylxanthines on children. Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 1998 Feb;6(1):87-95. Review. PubMed PMID: 9526149. 

9: Stein MA, Krasowski M, Leventhal BL, Phillips W, Bender BG. Behavioral and cognitive effects of methylxanthines. A meta-analysis of theophylline and caffeine. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1996 Mar;150(3):284-8. PubMed PMID: 8603222.




Attributions

Fenetylline structure was obtained from ChemSpider.

Is The FDA Contraindication On Bupropion Wrong?

Since moving to a strictly outpatient consulting practice, I have been amazed at the number of women who are taking bupropion despite the above contraindication.  I have probable seen 50 women who were under my care in this situation.  In other words, I did not prescribe the bupropion and before seeing this would not have considered prescribing against an FDA contraindication.  The patients I see often have additional contraindications including a history of seizures, sedative hypnotic drug withdrawal, or alcohol withdrawal.  Seizures are the final common pathway for this subset of contraindications.  I have never really observed a seizure from bupropion and the vast majority of the patients with the contraindications have never had a seizure.  I have certainly observed and treated seizures in inpatient settings and understand that there is a low but significant risk of mortality with seizures.  I have also not observed a significant complication of seizures, but at the time I worked in an inpatient hospital environment with rapid access to nursing staff, medications, and experts.  None of the patients that I have initiated treatment on with bupropion have reported seizures, but I was strictly following the contraindication as listed in the FDA package insert.

My dilemma in this situation is always whether or not to continue the bupropion, especially when the patient tells me that it is the only medication that has been effective for them.  Patients who are seen in their late thirties or later generally have been tried on numerous antidepressants from several classes and that complicates the clinical picture.  Most of them have never seen a  psychiatrist and all of the medication trials have been done by primary care physicians.  It is common to see SSRI and bupropion combinations initiated by nonpsychiatrists.   In my current capacity, I am not treating any of these patients long term.  I see them anywhere from 1 to 3 months and at that time they return to see their personal physician or psychiatrist.  I try to contact their personal psychiatrist about the issue but communication among physicians is often difficult to complete.

As I began to see more and more of these patients my first question was a scientific one.  I was aware of the the trials that lead to the decision about eating disorders.  There were all based on immediate release preparations rather than the sustained release (SR) or extended release (XL) versions.  It certainly is possible that I am only seeing the success stories and that the patients with seizure related complications never come to my attention, but the practice of prescribing bupropion to a population that the FDA considers high risk seemed to be on the rise rather than decreasing.  Is it possible that all of the other prescribers had also not heard of this complication.  I knew that most of the patients were never apprised of the contraindication.  I know that because I had them read the contraindication section of the package insert for themselves.  Most would say that nobody have ever told them about this especially the part about any prior diagnosis of anorexia nervosa or bulimia.  It is difficult to tell a 45 year old woman who had bulimia nervosa in college and recovered that the bupropion that she has been taking for the last 10 years without any side effects needs to be stopped because of this contraindication.  The psychiatrists I talked with all minimized the wording in the warning.  They ignored the part about "prior diagnosis".  In fact some initiated treatment as the patient was completing treatment in a specialized eating disorders program.

I turned to the FDA web site for additional guidance on the agencies definition of contraindication.  Was it as relative as these psychiatrists were telling me?  It turns out the definitions used by the FDA in package inserts are defined in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).  The section defining contraindications follows (p. 6 of 18):

(5) 4 Contraindications. This section must describe any situations in which the drug should not be used because the risk of use (e.g., certain potentially fatal adverse reactions) clearly outweighs any possible therapeutic benefit. Those situations include use of the drug in patients who, because of their particular age, sex, concomitant therapy, disease state, or other condition, have a substantial risk of being harmed by the drug and for whom no potential benefit makes the risk acceptable. Known hazards and not theoretical possibilities must be listed (e.g., if severe hypersensitivity to the drug has not been demonstrated, it should not be listed as a contraindication). If no contraindications are known, this section must state "None."

People seem to think that there is room for interpreting this definition of contraindication and it does beyond the APA Ethics Committee.  I got the same opinion from an attorney.  I also consulted a national expert on eating disorders.  That expert opined that the contraindication was relative in both  a history of eating disorders and acute eating disorders.  The expert also had inside knowledge of why the FDA might have issued the contraindication in the context of scant evidence.

I have previously posted that the FDA seems to exhibit some biases when it comes to psychiatric disorders.  In some cases they seem to not consider the severity of the the disorder in considering contraindications.  There should be no question that eating disorders and depression are very serious conditions, serious enough that therapeutic options may include some risk.

In the meantime, I have decided to take some action.  The FDA web site is a wall with no way in for people like me with a legitimate problem.  I sent letters out to the US Senators from my state to try to find a way in.  My goal is to get this contraindication taken out so it reflects current clinical practice and the experience of depressed patients with both a past history of an eating disorder or an eating disorder.

If you are a person with that history or a psychiatrist who prescribes bupropion in the face of this contraindication, please join me in advocating for this change.    


George Dawson, MD, DFAPA


References:

1: Dunner DL, Zisook S, Billow AA, Batey SR, Johnston JA, Ascher JA. A prospective safety surveillance study for bupropion sustained-release in the treatment of depression. J Clin Psychiatry. 1998 Jul;59(7):366-73. PubMed PMID: 9714265.

2: Horne RL, Ferguson JM, Pope HG Jr, Hudson JI, Lineberry CG, Ascher J, Cato A. Treatment of bulimia with bupropion: a multicenter controlled trial. J Clin Psychiatry. 1988 Jul;49(7):262-6. PubMed PMID: 3134343.

Abuse Deterrent Opioids - Are They The Solution?

I have a significant interest in opioids, specifically opioid use disorders or addiction to opioids.  We have seen an opioid epidemic in this country largely due to a naïve approach to chronic pain and exposing people unnecessarily to the risk of addiction.  At one level this is a failure of regulators who adopted the idea that chronic noncancer pain is best treated on a mass basis with opioids.  At another level it is a failure of American culture.  Americans are focused on abusable medications and they always have been.  This is not a recent phenomenon.  The reason that addictive drugs are regulated in the first place is that they were widely abused when they could be purchased over the counter from any pharmacy.  Advocates of legalizing drugs almost universally ignore that fact.  It is common to find people hoarding opioid prescriptions, giving them to their neighbors, and taking them for indications other than pain like insomnia, depression, or anxiety.  At the cultural level, opioids are generally regarded as magical pills that will cure whatever ails you.  But there is no such pill.

Physicians are not blameless in this process.  Around the turn of the 19th century, some physicians were maintaining large numbers of people in addiction as part of their medical practice.  At the turn of the 20th century, some physicians advocated “pain as the fifth vital sign” and the widespread practice of recording a patient’s pain rating in routine clinic visits with their vital signs.  In some cases this rating was mischaracterized as an “objective” measure like the other vital signs.  Any physician who is told that the pain rating is a “14” on a scale of 1-10, knows that little objectivity is involved.  The opioid epidemic is often viewed as a problem in physician education or a cognitive deficiency. I doubt that is the problem.  Every physician knows the basics about prescribing opioids by the time they leave medical school.  I can recall working in a clinic of chronic pain patients while I was a medical student in the 1980s.   In that clinic we prescribed hundreds of opioid prescriptions per month.  I also recall that none of those patients was ever asked about addiction or why they still wanted to take the medications even though their pain never seemed to improve.

This problem has also led to significant insights into the real function of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  The FDA web site has three paragraphs on “What we do.”  The first paragraph highlights what I always thought was the main function of the agency:

“FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.”

That seems like a straightforward definition.  In practice it is more complicated.  The best example I can think of to illustrate that is the FDA approval of the sustained release, high-dose hydrocodone product Norco.  The FDA’s own scientific committee overwhelmingly recommended against approving this product in the midst of an opioid epidemic.  They were overruled and the product was approved based solely on the manufacturer meeting regulatory requirements.  Despite concern about getting medications to market fast enough it seems like there are few obstacle to opioid preparations that are basically old medications repacked in a new form.

The financial considerations in this field are significant.  Several years ago speculation was that any successful abuse-deterrent opioid formulation would be a billion dollar a year drug for that manufacturer.  That is highlighted by the number of recent approvals for these drugs noted in the table below.

The current market for abuse-deterrent opioids is estimated to be about $7 billion.  The global pain market is estimated to be worth about $50 billion growing at a rate of 10% annually.  From the table above it is apparent that this is basically a patent extension market.  All of the main ingredients in these medications are generic opioids that are very inexpensive on their own.  By putting them in a special formulation or combining them with opioid antagonists (naltrexone or naloxone) the manufacturers claim they are producing a medication that is less likely to be abused. Whether or not that ultimately happens is anybody’s guess.  I tried to pull up one of the more notable prodrug use web sites and have not seen those compounds and so far no suggestion on how to defeat the abuse deterrence.  There are historical precedents.   Abusable drugs generally follow a predictable course of oral use to smoking or insufflation (snorting) to intravenous use.  Breaking up that chain of events is one strategy that may lead to less severe drug use, but the fact remains that the original oral formulation is still a potent medication that can lead to addiction.  The original case in point was the reformulation of Oxycontin in 2013.  The original capsule could be breached and the contents snorted, smoked, or injected.  The reformulation put the oxycodone in a hydrogel making it less available for snorting, smoking or injecting.  The detailed package insert still says that this formulation and the original formulation place the user at risk for addiction.

What can be learned about the proliferation of abuse deterrent formulations?  There is a strong incentive both in terms of market size and low production costs.  All of the medications in the table are very inexpensive generics that are reformulated with an inexpensive antagonist or a different pill matrix.  The main safeguard is the FDA in terms of the total number of these medications on the market.  The FDA has the potential to decrease the incidence of opioid use disorders.  There is no evidence that is their strategy because they are approving medications over the objections of their own Scientific Committee.  In some cases they discuss post marketing surveillance as being a measure of whether the abuse deterrent medication is working.  Neither of those strategies would seem to be very likely to me.  It is well known that reports of signifiant medication related events are probably very low relative to the actual incidence of these events.  I have previously advocated for a pharmacosurveillance/data-mining solution that would produce results before the expected complications of opioid dependence and unintentional overdoses.  The FDA’s current approach seems to be that further education of physicians will solve the problem.  This is not a problem of physician education.

As the formulations of opioids continue to propagate, there needs to be an awareness that the FDA is not attempting to contain the number of new opioid products released and that a preventive approach is necessary and is more likely to save lives than waiting for people to report complications or waiting for the Drug Enforcement Agency to make arrests.  It is also time to consider what can be done at the level of American culture and focusing on some basic misperceptions that result in the overvaluation of opioids.  The idea that opioids can alleviate chronic pain, that they are the best treatment for chronic pain and that everyone can take them safely are primary among them.

There also needs to be a better understanding of opioid use disorders.  Recent stories in the popular press make it seem like addictions are easy problems to get over.  Just make a decision to stop and most people are able to.  Tell the old story about returning Vietnam vets and how easy it was for most of them to stop using heroin.  These are not the people who are seen in acute care settings or who are treated for drug overdoses.  Many of those people will say that they knew they were using a lot of the drug, that they were not thinking about suicide but they did not care if they lived or died because: "All I wanted to do was get high."

That is a powerful incentive for defeating abuse deterrent pills.



George Dawson, MD, DFAPA   


Supplementary 1: What is an New Drug Application (NDA)? This is the formal application to the FDA where the sponsor (usually a pharmaceutical company) proposes that a new drug be approved for sale and marketing in the United States. For detailed information from the FDA web site follow this link.   

  

Why The Binge Eating Disorder Banner Ad Is Good Marketing

I noticed a new banner ad for Binge Eating Disorder in my Yahoo pages last night for the first time.  It is one of those sophisticated ads that becomes a video clip when you click on it.  The main message of the video clip is that "Binge Eating Disorder is a real medical disorder" and it provides a link to the web site bingeeatingdisorder.com.  If you go to that site and click on the health care professionals link, you are taken to what is essentially a massive infographic on binge eating disorder with descriptions of  what is known about the epidemiology and theory of B.E.D.  There is no mention of treatment or the specific FDA approved medication from this pharmaceutical company that has been approved for B.E.D.  My speculation is that is coming once the advertisers analyze their web traffic and see how well the ad campaign is accepted.  Specifically will there be the usual outcry that pharmaceutical companies are making up diagnoses in order to sell drugs and of course the evil psychiatrists that are involved.  If a lot of that blowback occurs it would be easy to cancel the campaign, take down the web site and either come up with another campaign or go with more traditional advertising to a much less politically adept audience, namely physicians through medical journals.  I admit, the brain graphic with a slice of pizza replacing the parietal lobe is eye catching.      

This ad allows me to make a couple of points.  The first is the reason that we have epidemics of addictive drugs.  The general process is an increase in availability and exposing more people to the drug.  We do not know the genotypes at risk but in general a significant part of the population will have euphorigenic responses to addictive drugs.  Wider availability generally equates to larger numbers of users and people at risk for addiction.  An example I like to use is growing up in northern Wisconsin.  Back in the 1970s, even though it was the hippie generation, the main exposure in remote areas was alcohol and marijuana.  Flash forward 40 years and now there is widespread availability of practically all drugs of abuse in rural areas, including intravenous heroin.  Anytime an addictive drug comes into the marketplace there is a risk that level of availability will lead to more addiction and complications of addiction.  In the case of the first amphetamine epidemic, it was marketing and general use for a number of disorders that did not respond to the medication and marketing products like benzedrine inhalers that could be easily abused.  In the end there were thousands of amphetamine containing products until all of them were moved to Schedule II and under much tighter regulation.

The second point is that the FDA clearly does an inadequate job of preventing addiction and complications of addiction.  There should be no doubt that the main objective of the FDA is to get pharmaceuticals out into the marketplace as soon as possible.  Although politicians like to grandstand on the idea that the FDA prevents the release of life-saving drugs or builds regulatory hurdles that lead to unnecessary expense there appears to be less and less evidence that is true.  Those same politicians seem to favor quicker release and less regulation.  It is fairly clear that the FDA has minimal scientific requirements.  The release of multiple new opioids during the time of an opioid epidemic of overdose deaths and against the recommendations of the Scientific Committee would be a case in point.  A further case in point is that none of these new opioid drugs is a unique compound.  They are all basically mixes and matches of old compounds in patentable dose sizes and various possibly tamper proof formulations.   Even as I type this note I am being informed that the FDA has accepted an application for reviewing a new drug that is a combination of extended release oxycodone and naltrexone.

The FDA clearly has a lax approach to potentially addictive compounds and they cannot depend on post marketing surveillance or their so-called REMS (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies).  A reasonable approach would be to use a gatekeeper strategy and monitor those physicians for complications from prescribing controlled substances.  Since agencies and regulators at all levels seem to believe that they can teach all physicians to prescribe controlled substances with an equal low level of skill, the time of the gatekeeper option is in the past.  The main FDA approach is post marketing surveillance or basically waiting to see what happens.  In the case of addictive drugs this is even a worse idea than with other risky medications.  The post marketing surveillance depends on reports from physicians, patients or other health care professionals.  Reporting a complication from a controlled substance is much less likely to happen for a number of reasons.  Physicians working in the addiction field may be working in settings where there is a higher standard for confidentiality than typical medical records.  Any time there is the potential interpretation of diversion or inappropriate prescribing reporting is less likely.  For these reasons post marketing surveillance is not a good approach to monitor a new pharmaceutical to see if it is being overprescribed and abused.

What is a good approach?  For decades there have been large databases that compile the prescriptions of all physician in the US.  This data was typically sold to pharmaceutical companies to gauge the success of their marketing efforts by the number of prescriptions written.  It is time that the FDA ran a database and looked at real numbers and trends in prescribing.  They would have first hand knowledge of how many new Vyvanse prescriptions were written for binge-eating disorders and where any potential prescription mills were located.  They could intervene before there was a years long or decades long problem.        

I conclude the Binge-Eating Ad is good advertising.  Someone once said that an addictive drug sells itself.  I think that is true in terms of the place that stimulants have in the collective consciousness of Americans.  They are seen as magical performance enhancing drugs that are good for whatever ails you.  I can see the pressure building in primary care clinics for Vyvanse prescriptions for Binge-Eating Disorder and patients expressing their severe disappointment if they hear their clinic will not prescribe it.  They will not understand that good advertising is not necessarily good medicine.

Creating demand for a medication with definite addictive potential seldom is.


George Dawson, MD, DFAPA