Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • About
    • JALM
    • Editorial Board
    • Most Read
    • Most Cited
    • Alerts
  • Articles
    • Current Issue
    • Early Release
    • Future Table of Contents
    • Archive
    • Browse by Subject
    • Special Issues & Collections
  • Info for
    • Authors
    • Reviewers
    • Subscribers
    • Advertisers
    • Permissions & Reprints
  • Abstracts
  • JALM Talk
  • Submit
  • Feedback
  • Other Publications
    • Clinical Chemistry

User menu

  • Subscribe
  • My alerts
  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine
  • Other Publications
    • Clinical Chemistry
  • Subscribe
  • My alerts
  • Log in
The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • About
    • JALM
    • Editorial Board
    • Most Read
    • Most Cited
    • Alerts
  • Articles
    • Current Issue
    • Early Release
    • Future Table of Contents
    • Archive
    • Browse by Subject
    • Special Issues & Collections
  • Info for
    • Authors
    • Reviewers
    • Subscribers
    • Advertisers
    • Permissions & Reprints
  • Abstracts
  • JALM Talk
  • Submit
  • Feedback
Research ArticlePoint/Counterpoint

Drug Detection in Urine for Evaluating Exposure—No Limits!

Gwendolyn A. McMillin
DOI: 10.1373/jalm.2017.023572 Published December 2017
Gwendolyn A. McMillin
Department of Pathology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT; Toxicology and Pharmacogenomics, ARUP Laboratories, Salt Lake City, UT.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: gwen.mcmillin@aruplab.com
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

The major goals of exposure testing in the chronic pain or addiction management setting are to verify that a patient has recently taken the drug(s) prescribed to him or her, and to detect use of nonprescribed drugs. Random urine drug testing, used in combination with other tools for evaluating patient behavior, is thought to reduce the likelihood of drug misuse and thereby promote patient safety and efficacy. Urine drug tests are recommended by the 2016 Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain that was published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1), as well as many professional associations, including the American Pain Society and the American Association of Pain Management. That said, no test is perfect—no single drug test can detect all drugs—and detection of drugs does not equate to adherence with therapy. Some laboratories have applied forensic drug-testing principles and practices from the federal workplace drug-testing program, managed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)3, to urine drug testing performed in a clinical setting. This makes sense because the SAMHSA program mandates content of drug tests and cutoffs, i.e., the concentration thresholds used to differentiate positive from negative results. However, experience has demonstrated that the drugs of interest to chronic pain or addiction management, …

View Full Text

Pay Per Article - You may access this article (from the computer you are currently using) for 1 day for US$15.00

Regain Access - You can regain access to a recent Pay per Article purchase if your access period has not yet expired.

Log in using your username and password

Forgot your user name or password?
Forgot your username or password?

Log in through your institution

If your organization uses OpenAthens, you can log in using your OpenAthens username and password. To check if your institution is supported, please see this list. Contact your library for more details.
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine: An AACC Publication: 2 (4)
Vol. 2, Issue 4
January 2018
  • Table of Contents
  • About the Cover
  • Index by author
  • Table of Contents (PDF)
  • Cover (PDF)
  • Ed Board (PDF)
  • Front Matter (PDF)
Print
Share
Drug Detection in Urine for Evaluating Exposure—No Limits!
Gwendolyn A. McMillin
The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine Jan 2018, 2 (4) 648-652; DOI: 10.1373/jalm.2017.023572
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Citation Tools
Drug Detection in Urine for Evaluating Exposure—No Limits!
Gwendolyn A. McMillin
The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine Jan 2018, 2 (4) 648-652; DOI: 10.1373/jalm.2017.023572

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

Related Articles

Cited By...

More in this TOC Section

  • Are Standard Cutoff Concentrations Sufficient for Pain Management Screening? Yes!
Show more Point/Counterpoint

Similar Articles

Subjects

  • Drug Monitoring and Toxicology
  • 2018 Special Issue: Using Clinical Laboratory Tests to Monitor Drug Therapy in Pain Management Patients

Navigate

  • Home
  • About
  • Articles
  • Information for Authors
  • Submit

Other Publications

  • Clinical Chemistry
Footer logo

© 2018 American Association for Clinical Chemistry

Powered by HighWire