Clinical Trial to Assess Efficacy of Virtual Alcohol Use Disorder Treatment

After receiving a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), telehealth provider Ria Health announced that it would collaborate with Stanford University to test the efficacy of its virtual treatment program that aims to reduce problem drinking and its effects on the liver.

Over the last 10 years, alcohol use disorder (AUD) has been a significant driver of the drop in life expectancy in the US, with 28.3 million people suffering from the disease in 2020, according to the press release. Among those 26 years and older, the frequency of AUD doubled between 2017 and 2020, rising from 10.6 million to 22.4 million.

Also, the COVID-19 pandemic put a strain on people suffering from alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) and AUD, leading to a rise in death rates.

To help address and treat these conditions, Ria Health announced a partnership with Stanford University at The Liver Meeting to launch a clinical trial using funding from the NIH. In the trial, researchers will examine whether the Ria Health Program can limit problematic drinking and markers related to liver disease. Hosted by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, The Liver Meeting is the leading national conference for hepatology.

"At Stanford, we are pleased to collaborate on this grant from NIH," said Judith Prochaska, PhD, MPH, professor of medicine with the Stanford Prevention Research Center, in the press release. "It will support a randomized controlled trial evaluation of Ria Health's telehealth intervention to increase screening and treatment for alcohol use disorder."

The clinical trial will include two phases. The first will use $367,000 to identify and screen trial candidates. After completing phase one successfully, $1.63 million will go toward phase two, when subject enrollment begins.

"This grant is a step towards preventative evidence-based interventions that can help reduce the alarming increased rates of cirrhosis that are disproportionately affecting people under the age of 45 and women who are misusing alcohol," said Tom Nix, CEO of Ria Health, in a press release. "Early detection of liver abnormalities and treatments for alcohol misuse are proven to reduce acute liver disease— which requires life-altering treatments and causes high mortality rates."

The Ria Health Program combines medical treatment with structured virtual counseling and technology, with the ultimate goal of reducing alcohol consumption. By offering various Food and Drug Administration-approved medications for AUD along with coaching, the program aims to reduce cravings and harmful drinking rather than relying on patients' abstinence from alcohol, the press release notes.

The program also provides participants with a Bluetooth device to track and monitor their blood alcohol levels.

Other similar efforts are underway to virtually track patient behaviors and determine correlation with health risk.

Following funding from the National Cancer Institute, Northwestern University researchers created a telehealth strategy known as Northwestern’s Program for Scalable Telehealth Cancer Care, which will focus on tracking three health risk behaviors among cancer patients: smoking, obesity, and inactivity.