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Completed Not applicable Interventional

Harnessing Placebo Effects in Methadone Treatment

ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT02941809

Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02941809. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.

ClinicalTrials.gov public records Last synced Sep 2, 2026, 12:42 AM EDT

Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.

Official title

Open-labeled Dose-extending Placebos as an Adjunct to Methadone Treatment: A Pilot Study

Brief summary

Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.

More than 2 million individuals in the United States have an Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). Methadone maintenance treatment is the gold standard of medication-assisted treatment for OUD, but high-dose methadone is associated with cardiotoxicity and respiratory complications, among other side effects. These adverse effects make enhancing the effectiveness of lower doses of methadone an attractive therapeutic goal. Long recognized for its capacity to enhance treatment outcomes for a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders including pain, the placebo effect offers an as-yet untested avenue to such an enhancement. This approach is particularly compelling given that individuals with substance use disorder tend to have higher salience attribution, and may thereby be more sensitive to placebo effects. Our study combines two promising clinical methodologies-open-label placebo and conditioning-to investigate whether placebo effects can increase the effective potency of methadone in treatment-seeking OUD patients.

Study identification

NCT ID
NCT02941809
Recruitment status
Completed
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Not applicable
Enrollment
133 participants

Conditions and interventions

Eligibility (public fields only)

Age range
18 Years and older
Sex
All
Healthy volunteers
Healthy volunteers not accepted

This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.

Study timeline

Start date
Dec 4, 2017
Primary completion
Jul 30, 2020
Completion
Jul 30, 2020
Last update posted
Aug 10, 2020

2017 – 2020

United States locations

U.S. sites
1
U.S. states
1
U.S. cities
1
Facility City State ZIP Site status
Maryland Methadone Treatment Center Baltimore Maryland 21201

Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.

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About this trial record page

What this page shows
Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02941809, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
What this page does not do
No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
Where the data comes from
Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
Last refresh
Last update posted Aug 10, 2020 · Synced Sep 2, 2026

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Open the official record

The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT02941809 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.

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