Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

[DonQuixote]

Hi @all

There are fascinating new statistics from France. For our forum I translated them from French to German. Maybe @Otter can translate from French to English.

Very best regards, DonQuixote

[Cassander]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

Thanks DQ

I am fluent in neither German or French, but using some remembered French from high school and a Google Translate version of DQ's German version, I have pieced together the following "summary":

The French Baclofen Association distributed a questionnaire which was completed by 1,650 persons, including alcoholics themselves, as well as family members, friends, and medical personnel, etc. 1,085 of the questionnaires were evaluated, of which 841 came from alcohol abusers themselves. The proportion of men (55%) was slightly higher than the overall proportion of women (45%). In the alcohol-dependent, the ratio was 64% men and 36% women.

8% of alcohol-dependent patients who responded to the questionnaire started baclofen in 2008-2009 following the publication of "Dernier verre” by Olivier Ameisen, while 59% began treatment in 2012. The increase in the number of treatments per year is exponential.

Of about 477 people who have completed treatment, 84% consider it a success and 16% failed or dropped out.

The average baclofen dose necessary to achieve success is 170mg/day.

12% required a dose of less than 80mg/day, while 24% needed a dose greater than or equal to 220mg/day.

Thereafter, if success has been achieved, the average daily consumption of baclofen decreases over time: 121 mg /day for those who started treatment in 2012, 112 mg/day for those who started treatment in 2011, 96 mg/day for those who started treatment in 2010, and 77mg/day for those who started treatment in 2008/2009.

Respondents who “failed” took an average of 140 mg/day baclofen before stopping the treatment due to difficult side effects.

95% of respondents, the sick, spouses, relatives and sympathizers want Baclofen to be officially recognized in the treatment of addictions.

Certain of the statistical results can be summarized as follows:

How did you learn of baclofen? (multiple answers possible)

Friends/Family 79%
Press 41%
TV 21%
Internet 18%
Radio 15%
Doctor 9%
Addiction center 6%
Other 7%

Alcohol consumption in standard drinks before treatment:
810 responses, 516 men, 294 women.
Standard drink equivalent to 2.5 dl of beer (5 ?) or 1 dl wine (12 ?)
Men: 3-4 drinks 2%, 5-6 drinks 7%, 7-10 drinks 20%, More than 10 drinks 59%, Do not know 13%
Women 3-4 drinks 6%, 5-6 drinks 11%, 7-10 drinks 34%, More than 10 drinks 38%, Do not know 10%


In case of successful therapy, do you want to be abstinent or not?
(721 replies, 464 men, 257 women)
Men: Yes 39%, No 38%, Do not know 24%
Women: Yes 40%, No 34%, Do not know 26%


Year of start of baclofen therapy:
(745 Replies)
2008/09 41 people
2010 66 people
2011 176 people
2012 442 people

Success of baclofen therapy, regardless of the time of start of treatment:
(745 Replies)
Successful 57%
Still ongoing 31%
Failure 12%

Success of baclofen therapy, depending on time of start of treatment:
(745 Replies)
Start:
2008/09 Successful 82%, Still ongoing 13%, Failure 5%
2010 Successful 73%, Still ongoing 18%, Failure 9%
2011 Successful 67%, Still ongoing 21%, Failure 12%
1st half 2012 Successful 60%, Still ongoing 28%, Failure 12%
2nd half 2012 Successful 41%, Still ongoing 49%, Failure 10%

For those who have completed treatment:
(477 persons)
Success 84%
Failure 16%

Stated reasons for the failure of therapy
(79 Replies)
o Undesirable, intolerable side effects: 60%
o Non-compliance with treatment instructions, psychological problems: 29%
o Doctor was not willing to increase the dose of the drug: 6%
o Others, including financial reasons: 5%

(The foregoing summary is a partial summary of the complete survey. I have omitted some conclusions which I found difficult to translate or summarize. However, I have not omitted any information which conflicts with the information presented.)

[DonQuixote]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

Bravo, Cassander!

I think your work is nearly perfect. Let us stay on this channel. Just tell me, which conclusions you have omitted. However, the most important ones are included in your translation. A tabularised presentation would be nice, but I do not know, if this feature is enabled by MWO.

Wonderful work, Cassander!

[TexasAg]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

This is great news! And as always thanks for all your work!

Cheers!

[Cassander]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

DonQuixote;1472113 wrote: Bravo, Cassander!

I think your work is nearly perfect. Let us stay on this channel. Just tell me, which conclusions you have omitted. However, the most important ones are included in your translation. A tabularised presentation would be nice, but I do not know, if this feature is enabled by MWO.

Wonderful work, Cassander!

Hi DQ

Yes, it was the tabularisation that caused me problems. I couldn't figure out how to post a multi-row, multi-column table, so I simply omitted the more complex tables.

Anyone interested in reading DQ's German version in English can click on the German version and use Google Translate to see a pretty good English version.

Cass

[kronkcarr]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

Cassander,
Thank you for doing this. I received the results this week and plugged them into a translater but. It's so much easier to read what you did. I appreciate your work.
kronkcarr

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

Thanks again, Don. And Cass.

[ifulovelife2]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

Cassander;1472096 wrote:
The French Baclofen Association distributed a questionnaire which was completed by 1,650 persons, including alcoholics themselves, as well as family members, friends, and medical personnel, etc. 1,085 of the questionnaires were evaluated,

Why the difference between the number of completed questionnaires and the number evaluated?

How many questionnaires were distributed in total?

Who were they distributed to? Members of the Association? Active members? Anyone who has ever been a member?

Wouldn't one expect an inactive member (ie one for whom baclofen didn't work) not to bother replying to such a questionnaire? Or even bothering to read it.

Hmmmmmm......

[ifulovelife2]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

I just re-read my post and it comes over as negative and possibly antagonistic. It really wasn't meant to be. There's useful information in that survey I just really don't want anyone to get too caught up in the 'success rate' suggestions, is all.

Did you like and appreciate the "is all" I added there? That was for the Americans among us. :H

[DonQuixote]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

Hi ifulovelife2

Some answers to some of your questions:

• An invtation-mail to complete the questionnaires was sent to all registered users (roundabout 5?000).
• Even not registered guest could participate.First intention of the questionnaires was a petition addressed to the French medical authorities. So many people who were not addicted completed at least partially the questionnaires.People who mentioned not to be addicted, could not see the questions about Baclofen-intake, so this questionnaires could not be evaluated for the statistics.

ifulovelife2: wrote: Wouldn't one expect an inactive member (ie one for whom baclofen didn't work) not to bother replying to such a questionnaire? Or even bothering to read it.

Yes, of course, that is very probable. But I can see, that members of the involved French forum are pretty faithful to it. Failings are widely and in an open manner discussed, without any discrimination. The results, by the way, are quite closed to other (smaller) retrospective and observational studies known so far. The fascinating on this new statistics are the long period under consideration and the huge number of participants.

DonQuixote

[ifulovelife2]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

Hey DQ, thanks for the reply.

I'm not sure but I think you may have missed my point a tad. The French forum is purely for baclofen users. It's not like this forum where one might try one med, if that didn't work out they might try another or go a non-med route, all the time remaining on the forum. On the french site, it's baclofen or nothing. So, if a person tried baclofen and it failed for them, the chances are they will eventually leave it and try to find their answers elsewhere. That being the case, they aren't going to be in the slightest invested in bothering with some questionnaire sent out by the administrators of a forum that didn't help them and they left, perhaps long ago. That means that the number of positive replies is, in my opinion, likely to be heavily skewed in favour of those for whom baclofen has worked and who have remained on the site. To a certain degree it's a self-selecting group. Don't get me wrong, there may be some useful information there but the 'success rate' should be utterly ignored because of the inbuilt bias.

[DonQuixote]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

Yes, of course, ifulovelife2

There is this inbuild bias you told. But as I said: The results are quite closed to other (smaller) retrospective and observational studies with high dosed baclofen against alcoholism known so far. i.e.

Frontiers | Suppression of Alcohol Dependence Using Baclofen: A 2-Year Observational Study of 100 Patients | Frontiers in Addictive Disorders & Behavioral Dyscontrol

Abstinence and 'Low-Risk' Consumption 1 Year after the Initiation of High-Dose Baclofen: A Retrospective Study among 'High-Risk' Drinkers

DonQuixote

[Hippyman]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

Thank you so much for posting this. I am forever grateful for Baclofen and for the help of the good people here at MWO!

[ifulovelife2]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

DonQuixote;1472730 wrote: Yes, of course, ifulovelife2

There is this inbuild bias you told. But as I said: The results are quite closed to other (smaller) retrospective and observational studies with high dosed baclofen against alcoholism known so far.

OK, but as the methodology of this survey is so questionable, the comparable results can at best be described as coincidental.

[onequart]

Baclofen: Fascinating new statistics from France

>

There are actually ongoing real studies about the efficacy of high-dose bac for alcoholism. Some of them should have been completed by now, including the Dutch one managed by Dr. Ameisen and begun 2 years ago. There is nothing so far - zero.

The French stuff is of course scientifically nonsense, and obviously so to anyone with a scientific background or just common sense.

Really? Self-reported? Self-selected?


Edit: The Dutch study has dissociated itself from Dr. Ameisen. Apparently they thought he was too big an Ahole (paraphrasing here).