TABLE 1.

Overview of studies of HAT by country

	Canada	Germany	The Netherlands	Spain (Andalusia)	Spain (Catalonia)	Switzerland	United Kingdom
Lead investigator (s)/study period	Schechter, M/ 2005–2008	Naber, D/ 2003–2004	van den Brink, W/1998–2002	March, JC/ 2003–2004	Casas I Brugué, M, Pérez de los Cobos J, Río Meyer, M/ 2004–2006	Rehm, J Uchtenhagen A, Perneger T/ 1994–2006	Strang, J 2006–2008
Design	RCT, multicenter	RCT, multicenter, stratified	2 RCTs, multicenter	RCT	RCT	RCT, prospective cohorts, cohort follow up	RCT, multicenter
Aim/intervention/ main study period	Injected heroin + oral methadone vs. oral methadone/ injected dilaudid + oral methadone vs. oral methadone/ 12 months	Injected heroin (+ oral methadone if requested) vs. oral methadone/ 12 months	Injected heroin + oral methadone vs. oral methadone/ inhaled heroin + oral methadone vs. oral methadone/ 12 months	Injected heroin + oral methadone vs. oral methadone/ 9 months	Oral heroin (IR) vs. oral methadone/ morphine vs. oral methadone	Injected heroin/ oral heroin (IR and SR), oral methadone, oral morphine/2 years (ongoing)	Injected heroin vs. oral methadone/ injected methadone vs. oral methadone/ 6 months
Participants	Opiate-dependent persons, predominantly using injected heroin on regular basis, not responding in the past or currently in MMT. Sample: 246	Heroin addicts, with concomitant health problems, who had not responded sufficiently to methadone treatment or were not reached by the therapeutic system. Sample: 1,032	Heroin-dependent patients in MMT, with severe concomitant problems related to drug misuse, not responding to available treatment. Sample: 549	Regular opioid- injecting people, with severe concomitant problems related to drug misuse, not responding to methadone. Sample: 62	Regular heroin users, not responding to MT in the past, not currently using methadone. Sample: 45	Severe heroin dependent persons to whom other therapies had failed or the health state does not allow another kind of therapy. Sample: 1,273 (247)	Regular injecting heroin users, currently in methadone, who do not benefit from conventional substitution maintenance Treatment Sample: 150
Outcomes	Retention	Improvement by 20% in physical or mental health and 20% reduction of street-heroin use (and no increase in cocaine use).	Improvement by 40% in physical, mental or social health and no increase in cocaine use.	Physical health; Drug related problems; Street drug use; HIV risk behavior; Psycho-social adjustment; Criminal activities.	Retention	Treatment retention	Reduction of illicit heroin and other substance use