El estado actual de las vacunas contra las drogas

traditional approach for drug addiction includes treatment with psychological assistance alone or in combination with pharmacotherapy aimed at blocking the binding of addictive drugs to their specific brain receptors. Success rate of these traditional treatments is not satisfactory; hence, alternative approaches should be explored, including immunotherapy targeting drugs of abuse. Objective: this paper focuses in a review of available literature concerning immunotherapy for the following drugs of abuse: morphine, cocaine, nicotine and methamphetamine, in order to be used as part of addiction treatment. Method: a search was conducted for scientific reports in PubMed from January, 2005 to April, 2017, focused on the scientific principles, method, preclinical and clinical trials and their results on the field of vaccination against substance of abuse. Results: the available vaccines against substance abuse succeed in blocking the drug’s reinforcing effects and mitigate drug-induced behaviors in preclinical trials in animal models. On the contrary, clinical trials in humans did not show therapeutic success. Discussion and conclusions: both academic research groups and pharmaceutical companies have published a number of pre-clinical research works on the field of vaccines for substance abuse, but thus far pre-clinical findings are not supported by results of the clinical trials. At present, efforts persist to improve vaccine efficacy and efficiency in humans for developing immunotherapy as a viable option for patients seeking treatment for drug addiction.