RT Journal
A1 Fraser AD
T1 MEthadone and theories of addiction
JF JAMA
JO JAMA
YR 1989
FD April 7
VO 261
IS 13
SP 1879
OP 1879
DO 10.1001/jama.1989.03420130041011
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1989.03420130041011
AB To the Editor. — 
    In the article by Dr Dole1 in the November 25 issue of JAMA, it was stated that clinical success in the rehabilitation of heroin addicts requires stabilization of the blood level of methadone in a pharmacologically effective range (150 to 600 ng/mL).Other investigators have studied plasma concentrations of methadone and have attempted to establish whether a threshold serum concentration or therapeutic window exists for methadone in the treatment of opiate dependency.2-7 All these studies measured the total serum concentration of methadone (protein-bound fraction and free fraction). Olsen8 studied the binding of tritiated l-methadone with solutions of purified human γ-globulin and human plasma. γ-Globulin bound 13% to 17.5% of the methadone and human plasma bound 83.7% to 87.3%. Since the maximum albumin binding was 43.8%, the author thought that other proteins probably bound methadone as well.Romach et al9 reported the