The Effectiveness of Intranasal Oxytocin on Addiction Severity Index and Anhedonia Symptoms in an Alcoholic Case with Oropharyngeal Cancer, a Protocol for a Single-case Experimental Design Pilot Study

One of the goals of all pharmacological interventions aimed to increase the survival rateof patients with alcohol-dependent oropharyngeal cancers is to decrease alcohol use. Oxytocinis an alternative therapy for craving and alcohol management. However, the effectiveness ofoxytocin on the severity of alcohol dependence has not been evaluated. In an ABABC study witha 6-month follow-up, during February 2015 to June 2016, a 67-year-old man with oropharyngealsquamous cell carcinoma with comorbidity of alcohol dependence syndrome and anhedonia wasselected by Respondent-Driven sampling (RDS). The patient was treated with intranasal oxytocinin two six-week stages (B1 and B2) and received placebo only in the other two stages (A1 andA2), and the follow-up results were evaluated at stage C. The data were analyzed by GeneralizedEstimation Equation (GEE) and Repeated Measures Correlation (rmcorr). Primary outcomesshowed that addiction severity Index (ASI) was signifcantly reduced in fve domains of medicalstatus, occupational status, alcohol consumption, family status, and mental status (all p’s < 0.05).There was no signifcant effect of treatment on legal status (all p’s > 0.05). Also, social (p <0.05) and physical (p < 0.01) anhedonia syndrome decreased in the treatment stages. However,these changes did not persist until the 6-month follow-up (all p’s > 0.05). Secondary outcomesshowed that there was a signifcant direct relationship between the severity of addiction andanhedonia (rmcorr = 0.01). The fndings of this study showed that the reduction of oxytocin-inducedneurotoxic symptoms led to a decrease in the severity of addiction and an improvement in theanhedonia syndrome.