[Pharmacological therapy of dependency on alcohol].

Effective treatment choices for alcohol dependence have existed for long, but only a minor proportion of those dependent on alcohol seeks medical care and receives effective treatment. The biological mechanisms underlying the dependence and pharmacological means affecting them should be known in order to guarantee a successful pharmacological therapy of alcohol dependence. Therapy should be targeted depending on whether the goal is immediate total abstinence, gradual abstinence or maintaining of abstinence. The strongest scientific evidence for gradual abstinence exists for the opiate antagonist naltrexone. In attempting immediate total abstinence, a significant proportion of alcohol-dependent patients benefits from supervised disulfiram treatment.