Supervised Disulfiram Should Be Considered First-Line Treatment for Alcohol Use Disorder

Abstract

Abstract Despite the prevalence of alcohol use disorder (AUD) in the United States, the armamentarium of FDA-approved medications available for AUD treatment is remarkably small. Disulfiram, 1 of only 3 approved medications, is consistently designated as a second-line option in national treatment guidelines, citing inconsistent evidence, lack of patient preference, and safety concerns. These concerns, however, stem from a misguided interpretation of the evidence that exclusively relies upon double-blind randomized controlled trials (RCT). When viewed instead as both a medication and a behavioral intervention, open-label RCTs become a more appropriate research method, yielding overwhelmingly favorable efficacy data for disulfiram, and supervised disulfiram, in particular. With these data in mind, supervised disulfiram should be redesignated as a first-line intervention in both treatment guideline creation and clinical pathway tools. The addiction medicine community can no longer afford to neglect this critical therapeutic resource.