Therapeutic effect of psilocybin in addiction A systematic review.
Psychedelic-assisted therapy e.g., with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) has shown promising results as treatment for substance use disorders (SUDs). Previous systematic reviews assessing the efficacy of psilocybin in SUDs only included clinical trials conducted in the last 25 years, but they may have missed clinical trials assessing the efficacy of psilocybin that were conducted before the 1980s, given much research has been done with psychedelics in the mid-20th century. In this systematic review, we specifically assessed the efficacy of psilocybin in patients with a SUD or non-substance-related disorder with no publication date restrictions in our search strategy. A systematic literature search was performed according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines from the earliest published manuscript up to September 2, 2022, in seven electronic databases, including clinical trials in patients with a SUD or non-substance-related disorder evaluating the efficacy of psilocybin. A total of four studies (six articles, of which two articles were long-term follow-up results from the same trial) were included in this systematic review. Psilocybin-assisted therapy was administered to Only one RCT and three small clinical trials were identified assessing the efficacy of psilocybin combined with some form of psychotherapy in patients with alcohol and tobacco use disorder. All four clinical trials indicated a beneficial effect of psilocybin-assisted therapy on SUD symptoms. Larger RCTs in patients with SUDs need to evaluate whether psilocybin-assisted therapy is effective in patients with SUD.