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Pain and Chemical Dependency News
Prescription drug abuse and illicit drug use are common in patients with chronic
pain. Adherence monitoring with screening tests, urine drug testing, and prescription
monitoring programs, are common practice. Random drug testing for appropriate
use of opioids and use of illicit drugs is often used in pain management practices
to prevent the use of illicit drugs and improve compliance with therapy. These
researchers studied the prevalence of illicit drug use in patients receiving
opioids for chronic pain and compared the results of illicit drug use with the
results from a previous study.
A total of 500 consecutive patients on opioids were studied by random drug
testing (rapid drug screen). Results were considered positive if one or more
of the monitored illicit drugs including cocaine, marijuana (THC), methamphetamine
or amphetamines were present. The investigators report that illicit drug use
was evident in 80 patients (16%) with marijuana in 11%, cocaine in 5%, and methamphetamine
and/or amphetamines in 2%. When compared with their previous data, overall illicit
drug use was significantly less. Elderly patients exhibited no signs of illicit
drug use. This study suggests that illicit drug use can be significantly reduced
with adherence monitoring combined with random urine drug testing. Manchikanti
L, Manchukonda R, Pampati V, Damron KS, Brandon DE, Cash KA, McManus CD. Adapted
from Pain Physician. 2006 Apr;9(2):123-9.
Full Text Available
PMID 16703972
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed
Credit: PubMed, developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information
(NCBI) at the
National Library of Medicine (NLM).
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