PARTICIPANTS are being recruited for a trial investigating whether ketamine-assisted therapy could help alcoholics stay off drink for longer.

Cumbria, Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust is one of seven sites across the UK to be selected for the new £2.4m phase III trial led by the University of Exeter.

It follows a positive phase II trial which showed ketamine and therapy treatment was safe and tolerable for people with severe alcohol use disorder; participants who had ketamine combined with therapy stayed completely sober, representing 86 per cent abstinence in the six-month follow-up.

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The trial, which will be rolled out into the NHS if effective, is being funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) with additional funding from Awakn Life Sciences.

Of 280 participants with severe alcohol use disorder, half will be given ketamine at the dose used in the first clinical trial with psychological therapy. The other half will be given a very low dose of ketamine and a seven-session education package about the harmful effects of alcohol. 

Trial lead Professor Celia Morgan, of the University of Exeter, said: “More than two million UK adults have serious alcohol problems, yet only one in five of those get treatment.

"Three out of four people who quit alcohol will be back drinking heavily after a year. Alcohol-related harm is estimated to cost the NHS around £3.5 billion each year, and wider UK society around £40 billion.

"Alcohol problems affect not only the individual but families, friends and communities, and related deaths have increased still further since the pandemic. We urgently need new treatments.

"If this trial establishes that ketamine and therapy works, we hope we can begin to see it used in NHS settings.”

The new trial will recruit participants across the following partner organisations: Imperial College London; Oxford Health NHS Trust; Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust; Northern, Eastern, and Western Devon CCG; South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust; the Exeter Clinical Trials Unit; Mersey Care NHS Trust; University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; NHS Forth Valley; Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.