• Pain physician · Jul 2012

    Urine drug testing: current recommendations and best practices.

    • Graves T Owen, Allen W Burton, Cristy M Schade, and Steve Passik.
    • Texas Pain Rehabilitation Institute, Houston, TX, USA.
    • Pain Physician. 2012 Jul 1;15(3 Suppl):ES119-33.

    BackgroundThe precise role of urine drug testing (UDT) in the practice of pain medicine is currently being defined. Confusion exists as to best practices, and even to what constitutes standard of care. A member survey by our state pain society revealed variability in practice and a lack of consensus.ObjectiveThe authors sought to further clarify the importance of routine UDT as an important part of an overall treatment plan that includes chronic opioid prescribing. Further, we wish to clarify best practices based on consensus and data where available.MethodsA 20-item membership survey was sent to Texas Pain Society members. A group of chronic pain experts from the Texas Pain Society undertook an effort to review the best practices in the literature. The rationale for current UDT practices is clarified, with risk management strategies outlined, and recommendations for UDT outlined in detail. A detailed insight into the limitations of point-of-care (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, test cups, test strips) versus the more sensitive and specific laboratory methods is provided.LimitationsOur membership survey was of a limited sample size in one geographic area in the United States and may not represent national patterns. Finally, there is limited data as to the efficacy of UDT practices in improving compliance and curtailing overall medication misuse.ConclusionsUDT must be done routinely as part of an overall best practice program in order to prescribe chronic opioid therapy. This program may include risk stratification; baseline and periodic UDT; behavioral monitoring; and prescription monitoring programs as the best available tools to monitor chronic opioid compliance.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…