Fighting the Opioid Epidemic: The Role of Providers and the Clinical Laboratory in Understanding Who is Vulnerable

by Amitava Dasgupta Ph.D, DABCC

Overview

Fighting the Opioid Epidemic: The Role of Providers and the Clinical Laboratory in Understanding Who Is Vulnerable covers the important aspects that are essential in fighting the opioid epidemic. This succinct reference highlights how the toxicology laboratory can play a vital role in fighting the opioid epidemic by implementing a robust system for drugs of abuse testing as well as drug testing in pain management patients. It targets health care professionals in a technical manner, discussing polymorphisms of important genes that may be associated with increased vulnerability of alcohol and drug addiction to an individual.

• Covers all important aspects of opioid abuse, including genetic and environmental factors
• Discusses pharmacology, toxicology and the pharmacogenomics related to opioid metabolism
• Presents genetic and environmental factors associated with those vulnerable to opioid addiction, as well as the pitfalls of drug testing in pain management

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780128223901
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	07/22/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Amitava Dasgupta received his Ph. D in chemistry from Stanford University and completed his fellowship training in Clinical Chemistry from the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine at Seattle. He is board certified in both Toxicology and Clinical Chemistry by the American Board of Clinical Chemistry. Currently, he is a tenured Full Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center and Director of Clinical Laboratories at the University of Kansas Hospital. Prior to this appointment he was a tenured Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Texas McGovern medical School from February 1998 to April 2022. He has 252 papers to his credit. He is in the editorial board of four journals including Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, Clinica Chimica Acta, Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Journal of Clinical Laboratory Analysis.

Table of Contents

1 Crude Opium, Morphine, Codeine, and Heroin: Past and Present2 Prescription Opioids: An Overview3 Opioid Abuse and Opioid Epidemic4 Genetic Factors Associated With Opioid Therapy and Opioid Addiction5 Environmental Factors Linked to Opioids, Drugs, and Alcohol Abuse6 Poppy Seed Defense and Workplace Drug Testing: Does It Work in the Court?7 Drug Testing in Pain Management

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Covers pharmacology, toxicology, pharmacogenomics related to opioid metabolism, genetic and environmental factors associated with vulnerability to opioid addiction, and more

Editorial Reviews

"This is a very nice, comprehensive book on the opioid epidemic. It should be a required bookshelf addition to any clinical laboratory performing drug testing." —Doody Doody

From the Publisher

Reviewer: Valerie L Ng, PhD MD(Alameda County Medical Center/Highland Hospital)
Description: This book covers all aspects of the opioid epidemic with direct relevance to providers and laboratorians.
Purpose: The purpose of this book is to broadly appeal to all involved in patient opioid use for pain management. These are worthy objectives well met by this book.
Audience: This book is written for the entire community involved in pain management with opioids - physicians (including those in training - e.g., residents, medical students) specializing in pain management, psychiatrists, pathologists, toxicologists, clinical laboratory scientists, nurse practitioners, and social workers. The book nicely meets the needs of its intended audience. The author is a most credible authority, being one of only a few internationally renowned experts in this area.
Features: This book is an extraordinarily comprehensive approach to the use of opioids for pain management and its relationship to the opioid epidemic. In only seven chapters, the book captures the history of opioid (heroin, opium) abuse, prescription use of opioids, the epidemic, genetic and environmental factors contributing to abuse and the epidemic, poppy seed versus heroin abuse, and drug testing. I am a laboratorian and, for me, this book was worth its entire value for just the two last two chapters. Regarding chapter 6, the poppy seed chapter, I never realized the many different dietary formulations including poppy seeds and their integral place in various ethnic cuisines. Or the importance of thebaine as a marker for poppy seed ingestion, or the nuances of how long after ingestion the morphine metabolite can be detected in a drug test, depending on which cutoff level is used. The author's advice from his experience as an expert witness to just avoid poppy seed ingestion for 30 days before an employment mandated drug test is priceless. So is the final chapter on drug testing for pain management. I wish I had this chapter two to three years ago when my patient management specialists were berating me for not knowing the intricate performance detail (e.g., cross-reactivity or detection) for the multitude of available drugs of abuse immunoassays, and not having chosen the one that could reliably detect the specific synthetic opioids being prescribed in our health system. This chapter will be my new go-to reference, saving me hours of online research.
Assessment: This is a very nice, comprehensive book on the opioid epidemic. It should be a required bookshelf addition to any clinical laboratory performing drug testing.

Doody's Review Service