Preventing Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome With Oral Baclofen: A Randomized, Placebo Controlled Trial

Adult medical/surgical inpatient hospital care is more difficult and more expensive when complicated by alcohol dependency (AD), especially for patients who develop alcohol withdrawal syndrome (AWS). AWS can be mild, moderate or severe. The Severity of Ethanol Withdrawal Scale (SEWS) is tool used to assess severity and is the current standard of care for both monitoring and treating AWS at Denver Health. Moderate/severe AWS (i.e., SEWS ≥ 7) has important clinical implications and requires pharmacological treatment. At present, there are no safe and effective options for preventing AWS in at-risk inpatients. Baclofen is a GABA-B receptor agonist that has been used in the alleviation of spasticity in patients with multiple sclerosis since the 1970s. Baclofen has shown promise in the management of alcohol dependency in preclinical and clinical studies. We propose to examine baclofen in the prevention/amelioration of AWS in adult medical inpatients. The investigators hypothesize that Baclofen, as compared to placebo, will significantly reduce the number of adult inpatients with AD who will develop moderate/severe AWS (SEWS ≥ 7) when assessed at 72 hours after enrollment. Further the investigators hypothesize that Baclofen, as compared to placebo, will significantly reduce the need for symptom-triggered benzodiazepine administration during the 72 hours of hospitalization. These hypotheses will be tested in adult inpatients who are determined to be at risk for alcohol withdrawal and are subsequently placed on the SEWS monitoring and treatment protocol. These patients will be randomized to baclofen 10mg three times daily vs placebo.